Lydia Herbert hesitated.

"I THINK I know," she replied at last--"But I'm not sure."

"Well, I'M sure"--said Gwent--"She's after the special quarry that
has given her the slip,--Roger Seaton. He went to California a month
ago."

"Then she's in California?"

"Certain!"

Mr. Gwent took another puff at his cigar.

"You must have been in Washington when every one thought that he and
she were going to make a matrimonial tie of it"--he went on--"Why,
nothing else was talked of!"

She nodded.

"I know! I was there. But a man who has set his soul on science
doesn't want a wife."

"And what about a woman who has set her soul in the same direction?"
he asked.

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Oh, that's all popcorn! Morgana is not a scientist,--she's hardly a
student. She just 'imagines' she can do things. But she can't."