On Tuesday afternoon a badly shaken, exceedingly frightened young man called at Campbell Pope's boarding-house.

"Good Lord, Bob! Been on another bat?" cried Pope, at sight of his caller. Wharton took a fleeting glance at himself in a mirror and nodded, noting for the first time the sacks beneath his eyes, the haggard lines from nostrils to lip-corners.

"I'm all in. Lorelei's quit me," he said, dully.

"Quit you!" Pope frowned. "Tell me about it."

"Well, I climbed the vine again and fell off. She packed up-- disappeared--been gone since Saturday night, and I can't find her. Nobody seems to know where she is. I came up for air Sunday, but ... I'm hard hit, Pope. I'm ready to quit the game if I can't find her; me for a sea-foam pillow, sure. Oh, I'm not kidding--I'll start walking from here toward Jersey. ... God! I keep thinking that maybe SHE took the river. You see, I'm all gone." He sank into a chair, twitching and trembling in a nervous collapse.

"Better have a drink," Pope suggested; but Bob returned roughly:

"That's what broke up the sketch. I got stewed at Fennellcourt-- high-hat week-end party--fast crowd, and the usual trimmings. Never again! That is, if I find my wife."

"Fennellcourt! Suppose you tell me all about it. If there's a chance that it's suicide--" Pope's reportorial instinct brought the last word into juxtaposition with "Fennellcourt," and he saw black head-lines.

"Judge for yourself. Maybe you can help me; nobody else can." Bob recounted the story of the house-party; how he and Lorelei had met Bert Hayman; how, once in the company of his old friends, he had succumbed to his weakness, and how he had caroused most of Saturday night. He told Pope that he could remember little of Sunday's occurrences, having been plunged in an alcoholic stupor so benumbing that not until late that evening had he fully grasped the fact that Lorelei had gone. Even then he was too befuddled to act. Neither Mrs. Fennell nor her husband could give him any help, and Bert Hayman, who had been with Lorelei all Saturday evening, had no explanation to give of her departure. Bob remembered in passing that Bert had been confined to his room all day Sunday as the result of a fall or an accident of some sort. Monday morning, while still suffering from the effects of his spree, Bob had returned to the city to find his home deserted, and for twenty- four sleepless hours now he had been hunting for his wife. He had called up Lorelei's family, but they could give him no clue; nor could he find trace of her in any other quarter. So, as a last resort before calling in the police, he had come to Pope. When he had finished his somewhat muddled tale he stared at the critic with a look of dumb appeal.

Campbell began in a matter-of-fact, positive tone. "She's altogether too healthy to think of suicide; rest easy on that score. You're weak enough emotionally to do such a thing, but not she. Besides, why should she? I can't imagine that any act of yours could very deeply offend anybody, even your wife. However--" He studied briefly. "Have you been to see Miss Demorest?"

"Sure! Adoree hasn't seen her."

"Possibly!" Pope eyed his caller speculatively. "So you decided to jimmy her into society, eh! Who was at the party? Oh, Lord!" he exclaimed, as Bob muttered over the list of names. "How did she compare with those sacred cows?"

"Oh, great! The men went crazy over her--I knew they would."

"But how did the women treat her?"

"Why, all right. I didn't notice anything."

"What? No, of course you didn't. You were probably too drunk to notice much." Bob flushed. "You introduced her to the fastest people in New York, then left her entirely to her own resources while you went away and made an ass of yourself. Well, something must have happened to alarm her, and, since you were too maudlin to be of any assistance, she evidently took the bit in her teeth. I can't blame her. For Heaven's sake, why did you set her in with THAT crowd? If you wanted to take her slumming, why didn't you hire a guide and go into the red-light district?"

Bob defended himself listlessly. "That's the only crowd I know; it's the only set that's open to a Pittsburg furnace-man's son. Those people aren't so bad; I guess they're no worse than the rest. If a person goes looking for nastiness he can find it nearly anywhere. I never did--and I never saw anything very scandalous around that bunch."

"One's observations are never very keen when they're made through the bottom of a glass," observed Pope.

Bob exploded irritably. "All right, Lieutenant! Play 'Jerusalem' on the cornet while I pass the tambourine. Damn the post-mortems! I want my wife, not a 'Ballington Booth' on the terrors of intemperance. I've got to have her, too. I--can't last this way. She's the only person who can straighten me up. ... I was doing fine. Had a job ... I'll go straight to hell again if I don't find her." There was no doubt of the man's sincerity: his mental and his physical condition were obvious.

Pope did his best to repair the wreckage in some degree, and, having quieted the sufferer, he set out for Miss Demorest's home.

Adoree, clad in a slightly soiled negligee, answered his ring, then, recognizing him, blocked the door hastily, exposing a face overcast with defiance and contempt.

"Aha!" she exclaimed. "Aha!" and Pope's sensitive ego recoiled before the fierce challenge of her tone. Physically the caller stood his ground, but inwardly he retreated in disorder. Adoree never failed to affect him uncomfortably; for he was conscious of having wronged her, and he could in no way reconcile her public reputation with his personal impressions of her. His inability to keep her notorious character constantly in mind made him angry with himself; and, further, she offended him by assuming bewilderingly different aspects every time they met. Invariably she greeted him with contumely; invariably he arose to the challenge and overcame her attack; invariably she fought him on every subject. And yet all the time he vaguely suspected that they were really in complete accord and growing to like each other.

"I've come to see Lorelei," he explained, affably.

"Oh, you're looking for scandal, eh?" breathed Miss Demorest. "Well, you won't get it, body-snatcher!"

Pope bowed gravely. "You overwhelm me with your courtesy," he said. "I do not represent the press to-day. I'm here as a friend. Bob's nearly dead."

"Serves him right. I suppose you've left another reporter to take down his dying words for the evening paper."

"Don't be silly. I want to see--"

"She's not here."

"Then I'd like to talk with you." The door opened slightly, and Pope smiled, whereupon the opening narrowed. "No. You can't come in. I've just cleaned house."

In desperation the man exclaimed: "I won't sit down, but I must talk to you. Really, I must, about--ducks, if nothing else."

"Ducks!" Adoree's expression altered.

"Let's be sensible. I want you to like me." Pope tried to appear amiable, but the effort resulted in a painful smirk.

"Huh!"

"We like the same things--let's be friends. You needn't tell me anything about Lorelei, but I do want your advice about Bob."

"I suppose there's no reason why you shouldn't come in. You'll probably wriggle in somehow, even if you have to steal a key. If you don't know the truth you'll probably make up something about Lorelei, as you did about me--Buzzard!" Pope began to perspire, as he always did when deeply embarrassed. But the door swung wide, and he entered with a strained, unnatural smile upon his face.

"You see I'm not concealing her anywhere," Miss Demorest challenged.

"Of course not. We never suspected you, but we're afraid something has happened to her."

"Something has."

"What?"

Adoree tossed her head. "You're paid to find out."

"See here, I'm not always a newspaper man. Try and forget that side of me for once. Bob will drink himself to death, or do something equally foolish, if Lorelei doesn't come back. He's repentant. He's in a terrible condition. I really believe she can straighten him out if she'll have patience, and you know he's too good a man to lose. He thinks she left him because he got drunk, but I'm sure there must have been some other reason."

"I should say there was! You want scandal? I'll give you some." Adoree's eyes were flashing now. "If he's going to drown himself he ought to realize what he did and think it over when he comes up for the third time. Have you any idea what that girl went through out there on Long Island? Listen." She plumped herself down beside Pope and began to talk swiftly with an intensity of indignation that made ............