The Secret Service--the diagnostician of social unrest, with professional finger on the pulse of the foreign element--had that finger touched the wrist of Marie?

"But this isn't finding my Marie," said Eveley. "I want her."

"Let's call Lieutenant Ames," said Nolan suddenly. "I rather imagine this will hit him."

"Oh, poor Jimmy," cried Eveley. "He told me he wanted to marry her."

Far into the night, they puzzled and pondered, not knowing which way to turn, but all in their love of Marie resolved that she must be found and saved again from the chaos. The next day, against the advice of all the others, Eveley sent word to Amos Hiltze and seemed to feel some comfort in his evident surprise and perturbation.

"I can not understand it," he said. "She was so happy, and loved you so much. I will look for her. She may have taken fright at something--but what could it possibly have been?"

"Tell her I do not care what has happened, nor what she fears. She must come to me and I will help her."

In spite of the insistence of Nolan, Angelo and Jimmy Ames, Eveley would have given the matter into the hands of the police, trusting to her own promises and her own standing to save Marie from whatever they held against her. But at her first suggestion of this to Amos Hiltze, he took a most positive stand against it.

"If you do that, you have lost her forever. It is the police she fears.

She would never forgive you for putting her into their hands, even if you could afterward extricate her. You must not dream of such a thing."

So Eveley gave it up and tried to reconcile herself to patient waiting, and to prayers of faith, determined to believe that the persistent search going on in all sections of the town would be effective, and believing still more fervently that G.o.d must return to her again the sister she had learned to love.

This time, because Eveley was suffering no one connected the disappearance of Marie with Eveley's theory of duty. And to herself Eveley made no claims, not even for her favorite Exception.

For if Marie had loved her, would she not have left at least one word of sympathy, and affection, in farewell? Indeed, if she had loved her, would she not have preferred the investigation of the Secret Service to separation? For Eveley would have braved every court in the country for her little foreign sister.

She tried to interest herself in the affairs of her friends, as of old.

She tried to return to her old whimsical routine of living alone in her Cloud Cote, but from being a little nook of laughter and love, it became ineffably dreary and dull. And Eveley was suffering not only because her love had been slighted and her hospitality abused, but because everything she had undertaken had failed. Americanization--what was it? For to Marie she had given every good thing in her power--and Marie had used her as long as she could be of service, and then had gone back to her own life, to her own people.

CHAPTER XX

SHE PROVES HER PRINCIPLE

All of Eveley's friends, realizing the loneliness and the sickness of heart which possessed her, united to plan little entertainments and bits of amus.e.m.e.nt for her. And Eveley accepted their plans gratefully, and acted upon their suggestions gladly, but the bitterness remained in her heart.

"I loved that girl," she would say to herself. "How could she do such a thing to any one who loved her? It isn't as if I had only tried to do what was right and kind by her. She owed me something for all that love."

One evening she went to Eileen's for a rollicking dinner with the twins in clamorous evidence. Eileen's home was a new creation; every day, she said frankly, was a new cycle of life. Her years of sober, studied business had not at all prepared her for the raptures and the uncertainties and the annoyances and the thrills of a household that had young twins in it.

"Billy bosses Betty unmercifully, and I do not believe in the dominance of men," she told Eveley. "And Betty charms Billy into submission, and I do not approve of the blandishments of woman upon man. And yet my sympathies are with both of them, and I adore them both. And I can never find anything when I want it, and when I do find it there is something wrong with it, and they both talk at once and I have to talk at the same time or I never get anything said, and yet we have wonderful times."

"You are certainly doing your duty by those babies," said Eveley tentatively.

Eileen took it quickly. "Um, not a bit of it. I am just fulfilling the desire of my heart. So you may take it that I am proving your theory if you like."

"At least you are proving my exception," said Eveley, with a smile.

"What is the exception?" Eileen questioned eagerly. "It seems to get all the proving, doesn't it?"

"It used to," said Eveley gravely. "But I have lost faith in it for myself. It worked for everybody else, but it failed for me. Now let's talk of something else."

They were in the midst of a merry game with the children, when the bell rang, and Eveley was called to the door, to look into the face of Amos Hiltze.

"You have found Marie," she cried out at once.

"Yes. She is at the ranch in the mountains where we found her first. She is in trouble, and sick. I told her I would come for you, but I suppose you can not leave yet?"

"Not leave--when Marie is sick and wants me? Wait until I get my wraps.

Shall we go in my car?"

"Yes, please. I was up at the Cote for you, and Mrs. Severs said you were here. I let the taxi go."

Eveley's face was alight with joy, and her heart sang with happiness.

Marie had been sick--it had not been cold neglect that kept her away and silent. And she had sent for Eveley.

"You are certainly a wonder," said Amos Hiltze, as she slipped into her place behind the wheel, and he took his seat at her side.

"You do not know how happy I am," she cried, turning the car toward the country. "You--do get so awfully fond of a girl like Marie, don't you?"

"Yes, of course."

"Is she very sick?"

"Not very. She will be better when she sees you."

"Why did she really leave me?"

"Oh, she was afraid the Secret Service would locate her, and it would get you into trouble."

"I might have known it was her duty. Wait till I get my hands on that girl. I'll tell her a few things about duty that will astonish her."

Already they were wheeling rapidly through East San Diego, and when a motorcycle pulled up beside them, Eveley stopped with a gasp. Of course she had been speeding--a thousand miles an hour, probably, though it had seemed like crawling.

"I am so sorry, Officer," she began quickly. "But I have to hurry. I have a little friend in the country who is sick and needs me."

"Oh, is it you, Miss Ainsworth?" And the officer smiled. "I did not recognize you. That is all right. Your car is a Rolls, isn't it? We are looking for a man in a Rolls--but I can hardly hold you." He turned his pocket flash upon Amos Hiltze.

"This is my friend, Mr. Hiltze," she explained. "I think you do not want him, either."

"No, I think not. Yet our man is supposed to have come this way. If you see any men on foot, or any one in trouble, better not stop. We'll have a man out that way pretty soon."

"Thank you," said Eveley. "Good night." And again they were on their way.

"Poor Mr. Man in the Rolls," she said after a while. "I wonder what mischief he has been into."

"I wonder."