At that moment Driscoll approached and the interview was ended. Knowlton wandered over to the cigar stand, bought a packet of cigarettes, and, lighting one, transferred the remainder to a silver-mounted leather case. Then strolling past Lila’s desk with a nod, he stopped in front of the lounge in the corner and exchanged the time of day with Harry Jennings and Billy Sherman.

After a few minutes of desultory conversation with Jennings, during which Sherman sat noticeably silent, Knowlton, glancing at his watch and observing that he had an engagement, left the lobby of the hotel, and started up Broadway.

He had no sooner disappeared man Sherman sprang up from the lounge, left by the side door, and followed him some twenty paces in the rear.

Broadway was crowded and Sherman was forced to keep close to his quarry in order not to lose sight of him. Knowlton walked with a swinging, athletic stride, looking neither to right nor left — ordinarily the gait of a man who has nothing to fear and nothing to be ashamed of. Now and then the pressure of the crowd caused him to make a detour, and Sherman dodged in and out behind him.

At Madison Square Knowlton stopped abruptly and looked first to one side, then the other. On account of the congested traffic at that point the action was perfectly natural, and Sherman, who had darted quickly behind a standing cab, was convinced that he had not been seen. After a short wait Knowlton stepped off the curb, crossed the square, and proceeded up Broadway.

At Twenty-eighth Street he turned suddenly and disappeared through the swinging doors of a café.

Sherman approached, and halted a foot from the door.

“Now,” he muttered, “if I only dared go in! I’d give a ten-spot to know who he’s with in there. That would settle it. But they’ll probably come out together, anyway.” He retired to a doorway nearby and waited.

In a few minutes Knowlton emerged alone. Sherman, cursing under his breath, hesitated and appeared ready to give it up; then, with a gesture of decision, he resumed the chase with an air of determined resolve. Knowlton had quickened his step, and Sherman had to move swiftly to overtake him.

At Thirtieth Street Knowlton turned westward. At once the pursuer’s task became more difficult. There was no crowd of pedestrians here, as on Broadway, and there was imminent danger of discovery. Twice when Knowlton halted he was forced to dodge aside into a doorway.

At Sixth Avenue Sherman found his passage obstructed by a passing cab. It was empty. Struck by a sudden thought, he sprang inside and, thinking thus to lessen the chances of detection, pointed to Knowlton and instructed the driver to follow him.

The driver grinned, wheeled his cab sharply, and turned down Thirtieth Street.

They crossed Seventh Avenue and Eighth, past rows of five-story apartment houses, with their narrow brass-railed stoops and air of dingy respectability. Straight ahead at a distance the Hudson could be seen shimmering in the light of the winter sun; from the rear came the sounding rumble and rattle of an Elevated train above the low, never-ceasing hum of the great city.

Knowlton continued his rapid stride to Ninth Avenue, and beyond, while the cab followed cautiously. Then suddenly he turned in at the entrance of one of a row of apartment houses. By the time the cab approached he had disappeared within.

Sherman ordered the driver to halt in front of the entrance, while a look of disappointment and chagrin covered his face. “Well, I’ll be hanged,” he said finally. “I thought sure I had him this time. And here he comes home to take a nap!”

He sat undecided in a corner of the cab.

“Hello, Sherman!” came a voice from above.

Sherman, startled, leaned out through the cab door and looked up. Knowlton was leaning out of an open window on the second story of the apartment house he had entered, looking down with an amused grin.

“Won’t you come up and have some tea?” he sang out pleasantly.

Sherman’s face colored with rage.

“No, thank you, Mr. John Norton,” he called. Then he turned and shouted at the driver to go on, while his brain whirled with the thousand wild schemes of a baffled and enraged man.

He, too, had noticed Lila’s preference for Knowlton. And he understood it, as Dumain did not; for the eyes of love are keen. He saw the uselessness of trying to combat that preference, for he recognized Knowlton’s superiority; but he hoped to acquire the power to force Knowlton to remove himself.

He believed that he possessed the key to that power, and he had sought in many ways to verify his suspicions, but so far without success. He had begun by attempting a bluff. But Knowlton had called it, and it had failed.

He had started a correspondence with friends in Warton. The information he obtained from them encouraged him; his suspicions were strengthened, but not confirmed. And he required evidence.

Then he had shadowed Knowlton, and seemed ever on the verge of a discovery. But the proof he sought, though ever within his grasp, forever eluded him. He was at last almost persuaded to give it up as hopeless.

He was filled with chagrin, disappointment, and despair, while the sight of Lila’s face and his desire for her spurred him on to renewed effort.

Now, as he made his way back to the Lamartine, he resolved on a stroke in the open. He would enlist the services of the Erring Knights, at the same time blinding them as to his own designs.

“They’re a bunch of fools, anyway,” he thought. “I think I’ll tackle the little Frenchman.”

Accordingly, when he reached the Lamartine he called Dumain aside.

“What do you want?” Dumain asked shortly.

“I want to talk to you about Knowlton,” said Sherman.

“What ees eet?”

“I’ve discovered something about him that I think you ought to know — something not exactly to his credit.”

Dumain stiffened.

“Knowlton ees my friend,” he observed meaningly. “Go slow, Sherman.”

“If that’s the way you feel about it I have nothing more to say,” said Sherman, turning to go. “Only I thought you were a friend of Miss Williams.”

Dumain looked up quickly.

“And so I am,” he declared. “But what is zee connection?”

“Only this: That no one who is a real friend of Miss Williams can possibly be a friend of John Knowlton.”

“And why?”

“Because... well, I don’t think he intends to marry her.”

“Mon Dieu!” Dumain gasped. “Has he been—”

“No — not yet. But he will be. And she likes him too well already. Have you noticed what she does with the roses he gives her? And do you know how her eyes follow him all over the lobby?”

“Well?”

“Well, you know what that means. It means that Knowlton can do just about what he likes with her. If not now, it’ll come soon. And he’ll ruin her. Do you know anything about Knowlton? Listen:

“His real name is Norton. One year ago he was cashier in a bank in a little town in Ohio. One morning they find the safe robbed — dynamited. They couldn’t prove Norton was implicated, but everybody knew he was. He beat it to New York. That explains where he got his coin. Now you have it. Should a guy like that be allowed to hang around Lila Williams?”

Dumain sighed.

“We are none of us pairfect,” he observed.

“Oh, the devil!” exclaimed Sherman, exasperated. “Perhaps not. I guess neither you nor me is going to publish our diaries. But that isn’t the point. To put it plainly, I happen to know that Miss Williams is in love with this Knowlton, and that he fully intends to take advantage of it. You know what that means.”

Dumain appeared to be lost in thought.

“But what can we do?” he said finally.

“The same as we’ve done to a dozen others.”

“But zis Knowlton — he is no coward.”

“There are six of us,” said Sherman meaningly.

Dumain rose from his chair with a gesture of decision.

“I speak to Dougherty and Driscoll,” he said as he turned to go.

Sherman watched him cross the lobby.

“The little idiot!” he muttered contemptuously. Then he turned his eyes toward Lila’s desk.

As he gazed at her his face burned with desire and his eyes glittered like the eyes of the serpent. Slowly they filled with evil exultation. Then, subduing this outward betrayal of his thoughts, he crossed to her desk, halted uncertainly, and finally reached for a telegram blank.

“You have decided to give me some of your patronage?” Lila smiled.

“Yes,” Sherman replied. “Only it won’t be in code.”

A tinge of color appeared in Lila’s cheeks, and a pang of jealousy that stung Sherman’s heart made him regret the observation. He placed the telegram blank on the top of the desk and after a minute’s thought wrote on it as follows:

MR. GERALD HAMILTON, President of the Warton National Bank, Warton, Ohio.

In case you wish to find John Norton, try the Hotel Lamartine, New York.

W. S.

Lila smiled as she read it.

“You newspaper men are so mysterious,” she observed. Then suddenly she turned slightly pale and glanced up quickly.

“She’s noticed the similarity in the names,” thought Sherman.

“Why?” he said aloud. “Is there anything so mysterious about that?”

“It sounds like a missing heir or a — an embezzler,” said Lila.

“I’m sorry I can’t enlighten you.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t expect you to. I suppose you’re full of important and terrible secrets.”

“Perhaps.” Sherman hesitated a moment, then added: “But there’s only one that I regard as important.”