some one else as ready as he had been to help her.
But, to his surprise, that thought was distasteful to him. During his
long, cold ride in solitude he discovered that the thing he wanted most in
life was to find that girl again and take care of her.

Of course he reasoned with himself most earnestly from one end of the
trolley line to the other, and called himself all kinds of a fool, but it
did not the slightest particle of good. Underneath all the reasoning, he
knew he was glad that he had found her once, and he determined to find her
again, and to unravel the mystery. Then he sat looking long and earnestly
into the depths of the beautiful white stone she had given to him, as if
he might there read the way to find her.

A little after midnight he arrived at the club-house, secured his
suit-case and the hat-box, and took a cab to his home. He left the vehicle
at the corner, lest the sound of it waken his mother or sister.

He let himself silently into the house with his latch-key, and tiptoed up
to his room. The light was burning low. He put the hat-box in the farthest
corner of his closet, then he took out the rain-coat, and, slipping off
his shoes, went softly down to the hall closet.

In utter darkness he felt around and finally hung the coat on a hook under
another long cloak, then gently released the hanging loop and let the
garment slip softly down in an inconspicuous heap on the floor. He stole
upstairs as guiltily as if he had been a naughty boy stealing sugar. When
he reached his room, he turned up his light, and, pulling out the hat-box,
surveyed it thoughtfully. This was a problem which he had not yet been
able to solve. How should he dispose of the hat so that it would be
discovered in such a way as to cast no further suspicion upon the maid?
How would it do to place the hat in the hall-closet, back among the coats?
No, it might excite suspicion to find them together. Could he put it in
his own closet and profess to have found it there? No, for that might lead
to un