is in a sheltered place for there’s a ferocious storm coming up and the wind is blowing a gale.”

The nodding plumes on her hat tossed as she raised her head inquiringly and looked about.

“What do I smell?” she exclaimed; “it’s like—like pistol-smoke!”

“It is,” Mr. Talcott said. “But there’s no pistol here now——”

“How exciting! What’s it all about? Do tell me.”

Clearly the girl apprehended no serious matter. Her wide-open eyes showed curiosity and interest, but no thought of trouble had as yet come to her.

She stepped further into the room, and throwing back her furs revealed a slender graceful figure, quick of movement and of exquisite poise. Neither dark nor very fair, her wavy brown hair framed a face whose chief characteristic seemed to be its quickly changing expressions. Now smiling, then grave, now wondering, then merry, she looked from one to another of us, her big brown eyes coming to rest at last on Norah.

“Who are you?” she asked, with a lovely smile that robbed the words of all curtness.

“I am Norah MacCormack, Miss Raynor,” my stenographer replied. “I am in Mr. Brice’s office, across the hall. This is Mr. Brice.”

There was no reason why Norah should be the one to introduce me, but we were all a little rattled, and Mr. Talcott, who, of course, was the one to handle the situation, seemed utterly at a loss as to how to begin.

“How do you do, Mr. Brice?” and Miss Raynor flashed me a special smile. “And now, Mr. Talcott, tell me what’s the matter? I see something has happened. What is it?”

She was grave enough now. She had suddenly realized that there was something to tell, and she meant to have it told.

“I don’t know, Miss Raynor,” Talcott began, “whether anything has happened, or not. I mean, anything serious. We—that is,—we don’t know where Mr. Gately is.”

“Go on. That of itself doesn’t explain your anxious faces.”

So Talcott told her,—told her just what we knew ourselves, which was so little and yet so mysterious.

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