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 come to me before in notes—proper, signed notes,” Mrs. Sadgrove replied, evasively. And then she added, with gentle significance, not from curiosity, but from a desire to help him in case he did not know: “I heard the name of Ziegler when we were calling at the Cecil yesterday. It was mentioned, I think, by one of the attendants as that of the gentleman occupying the rooms where the disturbance was.”

The General looked hard at her, and saw that his little drama had not deceived the companion of his Indian days.

“Yes,” he said, shortly. “Do not trouble about this, Madge. It’s all in the day’s work.”

But he himself was greatly troubled, inasmuch as if that anonymous warning came from Mrs. Talmage Eglinton all his “case” was demolished, and a perfect maze of new problems was presented. A warning from her would be presumptive evidence that she was an ally, and—sad blow to his amour propre—would stultify all the theories he had based on what he had fondly hoped was an unerring intuition. He would have to begin all over again, solacing himself—and it was no small solace—with the reflection that he