the passion of young manhood.

Left alone to his daily affairs, Randall Clayton now lived behind
an impenetrable mask. He knew not which of the higher employees
was charged with that secret espionage so necessary to the final
success of the Worthington, Durham and Ferris conspiracy.

Was it the pale-faced Somers, the smooth old accountant, his
pompous chief, Mr. Robert Wade, or some one of those who had broken
his bread and drank his wine in the occasional friendship of the
business coterie. And now Clayton hated the old money-lover who was
foisting a husband on his only child merely to chain a Senator to
the wheels of the money chariot.

Seated alone, in the evening, watching the treasured picture, and
waiting for the day of the diva's breakfast, a fierce desire for
stern reprisals took possession of Clayton. "I have it!" he murmured.
The pathway seemed clear at last. And the next day, following out
his self-protective scheme, he directed the bright-faced office
boy Einstein to report at his rooms on the ensuing evening.

There was a broad grin on the young rascal's face when he finally
left his master. He darted away with a ten-dollar bill in his purse,
the earnest of a secret monthly stipend. "Some strange fellows
are following me, spying upon me, my boy," said the man who now
doubted all men but one, on earth, and who was fast falling under
the spell of his dreamy adoration of an utterly unknown siren.

"It matters not who they are or what they want. I wish you to
follow me up, with a good deal of care, in my evening wanderings,