still as much a mystery to the other guests as when she arrived,
travel-stained and worn with the repressed emotion of her sacrifice.
She had appeared to show no interest in anything, to take her meals
mechanically, to stay most of the time in her room, never to enter
into any of the recreations of the famous winter resort.

Only once a day did she betray the slightest concern about anything
around her. That was when the New York papers arrived. Then she was
always first at the news-stand, and the boy handed out to her, as a
matter of habit, the STAR. Yet no one ever saw her read it. Directly
afterward she would retire to her room. There she would pore over
the first page, reading and rereading every personal in it.
Sometimes she would try reading them backward and transposing the
words, as if the message they contained might be in the form of a
cryptograph.

The strain and the suspense began to show on her. Day after day
passed, until it was nearly two weeks since the parting in New York.
Day after day she grew more worn by worry and fear. What had
happened?

In desperation she herself wired a personal to the paper: "Weston.
Write me at the Oceanview. Easton."

For three days she waited for an answer. Then she wired the personal
again. Still there was no reply and no hint of reply. Had they
captured him? Or was he so closely pursued that he did not dare to
reply even in the cryptic manner on which they had agreed!

She took the file of papers which she kept and again ran through the