he died, out West, I helped the orphan lad along. There was no trouble until Randall became an inmate of my household, after his graduation.
"I woke up, however, one day to find that my little Alice had leaped into womanhood at a bound. And so I have decided to push Clayton's fortunes from a safe distance. For, the social freedom of the college lad and the schoolgirl in short frocks cannot be allowed to the man of twenty-four and the blossoming girl of sixteen."
Hugh Worthington, giving over his protégé to the watchful care of Arthur Ferris, old beyond his years, never realized the boundless ambitions of the aspiring New York lawyer.
Ferris, with an eye ambitiously fixed upon the Senate of the United States, had quickly become a living spirit of boundless energy in the Western Trading Company's service, and Miss Alice Worthington, on her New York visits, a girlish tyro, saw only the man, and not the lawyer, in her accomplished metropolitan cavalier.
And so the coming young advocate's heart bounded with delight at the six-weeks' future companionship of the woman whose unguarded heart had silently drifted toward him "along the line of least resistance."
Arthur Ferris burned now to make his calling and election sure, before this "round the world" trip should present an endless succession of fortune hunters to the gaze of the Detroit heiress.
Clayton, hastening back toward the office, was only intent upon the answer to his chief's despatch and he never noticed, across the street, the progress of Emil Einstein, threading the crowds swiftly, and yet furtively watching his master's progress. He reached Fourteenth Street two blocks in advance of his unsuspecting employer, and then paused for a moment in the shaded corridor of a photographer's atelier.
With a whispered word, the young spy slipped, eel-like, into the crowd and had regained his desk long before Randall Clayton reentered the office. The lad's face glowed with a secret triumph.
Clayton's countenance was flushed by some strong emotion as he absently entered the private office of the head accountant. The sharp clang of his bell brought the office boy at once to his side, when, ten minutes later, the young cashier handed to Einstein a telegram.
The doors of the various rooms were now clanging with the snap of the locks as the boy respectfully said, "Anything else for this afternoon, sir?" Clayton carelessly nodded for the lad's dismissal and then bowed his tired head upon his hands, as the nimble youth eagerly sped away to the telegraph office and his half holiday.
The office staff were all filing out, wearied with the week's work, and Robert Wade, Esq., the chief manager, stared in surprise as Clayton passed him without a word, in answer to his stately greeting. He watched the young man, who slowly descended by the stairway, forgetting the ready elevator service. "What's up with Clayton?" murmured the pompous official. "He forgot his manners!"
All unconscious of his strange actions, Randall Clayton slowly sought the street level, waiting until his colaborers had all departed. He then moved along again toward the window where the Danube view still charmed the passerby.
Then, turning abruptly, he hurried away to a Broadway car, seeking the solitude of the cosy apartment in the still respectable "Thirties," which he had so long shared with Ferris.
He dared not, as yet, ask himself why Fate had shown him, a second time, at that very window, the graceful figure of the beautiful unknown.
But, there, with the slender music roll still clasped in her delicate hand, she stood, lingering a beautiful Peri in his path, on his return from the meeting with Ferris.
And he was not deceived this time. For the blush of semi-recognition, the womanly embarrassment as their eyes met in a sudden surprise, told him that she also had lingered for a moment at their involuntary trysting place.
It was in vain that he sought for any cogent reason for the reappearance of the unknown dark-eyed beauty.
There was no veiled suggestion in her wistful eyes, no lure of the fisher of men in the restrained mien of the lovely unknown. He paced his room for half an hour, until the arrival of Ferris brought about an active discussion of all their personal and business affairs which lasted until the coupé arrived to bear them to the station.
In the long examination of their mutual interests, Clayton had strangely forgotten to even mention the name of Miss Alice Worthington, for he was still keenly aware of the gradual fading away of the ties of friendly family intimacy which had once bound him to the Detroit household.
Moreover, loyal to his chum as he was, he could not forget how often, in the past two years, he had seen letters lying on Ferris' table, bearing the superscription of the woman who had been graduated by Fate from that dangerous rank of "Little Sister."
Before Ferris finally turned over his keys, the cool lawyer laid his hand gravely on Clayton's shoulder.
"Randall, my boy!" he said. "It's only fair to you to tell you that the Fidelity Company makes private reports to Hugh Worthington upon the inner life of all the bonded employees. Some of these documents have always been forwarded through me. Evidently there have been some new directions given on this matter.
"Worthington is a man who forgets nothing. You will be left alone.
You know your dangerous trust. Be always on your guard!
"For, even though born in its whirl, there are dangers in New York which are sealed books to me, even now; and, you are a stranger here, after all.
"Take care of yourself! Be watchful! There will be many jealous eyes spying upon your every movement, and strange eyes at that."
They entered the carriage in a constrained silence, in the early nightfall, and were soon whirled away toward the Forty-second Street Depot. Some overhanging shadow seemed to dampen the ardor of that friendly farewell, when the gliding train bore the lawyer away from his friend's sight.
At that very instant the office boy, Einstein, darted out of the great depot's main entrance and mingled with the passers by. "Now for Fritz Braun," he chuckled. "She has caught on at last! He followed her to the 'Bavaria.' The lawyer is gone for good! The field is clear. There's a twenty now in sight, and many a twenty to follow."
CHAPTER II.
TIDINGS OF GREAT JOY.
While Randall Clayton was lingering moodily over a lonely dinner at the Grand Union, his office boy was dallying with a cigarette on the front platform of a Fourth Avenue car.
Emil Einstein had safely sized up the friendly adieu of the two room-mates, and was now hastening down to report his successful infamy.
"Too late for Sixth Avenue!" the hard-faced boy muttered. "Catch him at 'the Bavaria,' sure."
The round, gloating eyes of the young New York-nurtured Jew were ablaze with a fierce thirst for pleasure.
Round shouldered, strongly built, his Semitic countenance was all aglow with a superabundant vitality, and the pleasure-loving mouth alone belied the keen intelligence of the wide set Hebraic eyes.
An elève of the gutters of New York's East-Side ghetto,
