The conviction grew upon him as he sat there that Hélène had spent the
first five years of her life at the Ursuline Convent in St. Peter. What
had her mother--young and beautiful--been doing during those years, the
years of a mother's most anxious devotion and pleasurable interest? He
searched his memory for Club reminiscences of a Marie Delano of twenty
years earlier, or less. No such name rewarded his mental explorations,
and Marie Delano was not a name likely to escape.

He exclaimed aloud at his stupidity. The astute French woman was hardly
likely to return to the scene of her former triumphs with an innocent
young daughter and an infamous name. Nor, apparently, had she carried it
to Rouen after she had manifestly foresworn vice for the sake of her
child, even to the length of resigning herself to the dullness of a
provincial town.

But "Jim"? Her husband? Could Bisbee have referred to some other Jim who
had "croaked" recently? Such women have more than one Jim in their
voluminous lives.

Ruyler had that order of mental temperament to which dubiety is the
one unendurable condition; he had none of that cowardice which
postpones an unpleasant solution until the inevitable moment. Whatever
this hideous mystery he would solve it as quickly as possible and then
put it out of his life. Beyond question poor Hélène was the victim of
blackmail; that was the logical explanation of her ill-concealed
anxiety--misery, no doubt!

He wished she had had the courage to come directly to him, but it was
idle to expect the resolution of a woman of thirty in a child of twenty.