dollars! He paid like a prince, and, if I mistake not, this is his
first and last transaction here. The picture that he wanted is
burned into his heart now."

It was but one of a hundred similar intrigues to which Lilienthal
had been the successful Leporello, and he calmly betook himself to
the continued villainy of his daily life. He feared also to follow
on the footsteps of the crafty Fritz Braun, for in the years of
their illicit dealings the weaker nature had been molded by the
daring master villain into a habitual subjection. "He has some
little game of his own," chuckled Lilienthal. "Friend Fritz is a
sly one."

But the man, now burning with a new purpose in life, the puppet of
strange destinies, dreamed only of a golden future as he lingered
late that night at the Astor House with Jack Witherspoon.

It was two o'clock before he returned to his lonely rooms to gloat
over the picture and its promise of the future meeting.

"I shall be rich," he mused, "and I will follow her to the end of
the earth until I read the secret of those wonderful eyes."

He little dreamed that even before he had paid Lilienthal the
cheque, a carriage had stopped for a moment before Magdal's Pharmacy,
and Mr. Fritz Braun had heard, with a wild delight, the whispered
words, "The game is won; he will come!" The busy devil prisoned in
Braun's heart laughed for very joy.