The time of roses had come and gone once more. The woodland was turning to gold again around the beautiful country home of that successful capitalist, Mr. John Witherspoon, at Fordham.

All the world knew of the stately glories of that recent wedding festivity at Detroit, whereat, under the wedding bell of white blossoms, Miss Francine Delacroix had given her hand to the man whom all envied as he stood before them, the active intellectual champion of Miss Alice Worthington.

The serene countenance of the young millionairess was placid, bearing a dignity far beyond her years, when she marshalled the friends of her youth to witness the marriage of the man whose skilful hand now guided the vast eastern interests of the Worthington Estate.

It was only after the bewildering honeymoon days had passed that Witherspoon, under the advice of Counselor Stillwell and the astute executors, began to gather up all the loose ends of the Clayton affair.

The permanent residence of Witherspoon in New York City was exacted by the growing cares of the vast company's interests.

And so the young bridegroom had selected a temporary country house until his vivacious helpmeet could be pleased in a choice of their permanent city residence. Unchanged by the possession of his dead friend's fortune, so romantically passed down to him, Witherspoon ceased to try to unravel the dark complications of Hugh Worthington's past.

There seemed to be some peculiar restraining influence which sealed the lips of Messrs. Boardman and Warner, and even the great Stillwell but briefly referred to the strange compact with Ferris which had seemed to buy the crafty schemer's silence for one hundred thousand dollars.

To the astonishment of proud old Detroit, Miss Worthington seemed to show no desire to open her superb palace home to society, and the great world slowly crystallized to the conclusion that she had found a new field in the affairs of the vast estate now absolutely under her own control.

The beautiful girl seemed to have passed, with a bound, into a mature womanhood, as if some malign influence had swept away all the flowers from her path. And, in her daily walks, she avoided the scores of gallants who now sought that richly dowered hand.

"This is not as it should be," finally decided Witherspoon, whose firm hand had cleared up all the aftermath of complications arising from Clayton's murder.

Busied with his own affairs, Witherspoon left the fate of Irma Gluyas, the friendless Leah, and the corrupted boy to Doctor William Atwater, whose frequent visits to Detroit were explained by some vague plan of philanthropic deeds now occupying the mind of Miss Worthington.

The meaner subordinates of Fritz Braun's crime were all easily disposed of, for both Lilienthal and Timmins were now serving long sentences for defrauding the United States customs laws.

And the Newport Art Gallery and the Magdal's Pharmacy were now both matters of "ancient history."

A mock auction allured the crowd, where the drugstore had long gathered the degenerates, and a gaudy "Bargain Bazar" flourished where once Lilienthal's inviting smile had wooed the unwary.

And, as the pernicious smuggling gang had been routed, "smitten hip and thigh," Witherspoon ceased to pry into the still partly veiled past. It was only after Sergeant Dennis McNerney had dropped the very last clue, that Witherspoon finally abandoned his settled purpose of tracing down Arthur Ferris' supposed connection with the crime which swept Randall Clayton out of the world. "It's no use, sir!" muttered the sergeant, "He was capable of anything, but he stands clear of the whole thing!"

The prosperous sergeant had sifted to the very dregs the fullest confessions of the passionate-hearted Hungarian beauty, and the defenceless Leah.

The complete history of "August Meyer" in Brooklyn had been traced out, and McNerney triumphantly demonstrated the uselessness of further search in No. 192 Layte Street.

The old mansion had been in every way changed, and the basement was now the abode of swarming Celestials, who had tinkered its space up to suit themselves. There were no traces of the crime left!

And so, reluctantly, Manager Witherspoon ceased to pry into the private life of Arthur Ferris. McNerney stoutly maintained the thesis to the last, that Ferris and Fritz Braun were strangers.

"The women both prove it," urged the officer.

"And yet some still unfathomed game of Ferris made him Clayton's secret enemy. Ferris wanted that beautiful heiress; he wanted to completely estrange and supplant Clayton, and so to reach old Worthington's millions. For that, he clung to the unsuspecting comrade of his bachelor life. Look to the West for light in this!

Believe me, if any one knows, it is Miss Worthington! She is one woman in a million, a woman who does not talk!"

"What do you mean, Dennis?" sharply said the young lawyer.

The simple policeman stoutly answered, "I observed that Miss Alice seemed to have gained a great mastery over Counselor Stillwell and her Detroit lawyers.

"She was with her father for hours before he died, and I'm of the opinion that he told her many things that none of the lawyers even dream of, secrets that perhaps even you do not suspect! I'm only a plain policeman, yet strange schemes are in these millionaires'

heads often.

"The great man had his own private uses for Ferris, and for the Senator uncle, who knows what great designs ended with his death.

"Believe me, she is following out her father's last advice; and if she lets Ferris off easy, you must do the same!

"As for Fritz Braun, he at first only intended, evidently, to lure poor Clayton into the Art Gallery or his own drug-store, through this pretty Hungarian, and, from a study of Clayton's habits, change the valises and so rob him by the old trick! The bunco game!

"But fortune willed otherwise, and Braun took the chance of Clayton's faith in the girl. He did not know that Clayton was so fondly devoted to the woman.

"The murder was a sudden inspiration, arising from Clayton's headlong imprudence.

"And Braun knew nothing of old Worthington's designs, nor Clayton's past history. What more Miss Worthington may know, you will never know, much as she esteems you, unless she wills. For she is a very resolute character, and I believe that she is quietly managing Stillwell and the other lawyers in her own way.

"It's clear to me that both Ferris and Braun used this poor office boy as a spy on Clayton; only, for different purposes.

"As for the two women, they were both mere puppets! Fritz Braun was tempted by the unprotected situation of that vast sum of money going daily to the bank. He easily learned that from the boy's braggadocio talk, and then used the whole circle as a means to entrap Clayton. As for the women, they are both merely what temptation, misery, and surroundings have made them. I'm glad to hear Doctor Atwater say Miss Worthington has some plans for their future.

"As for the boy, your own design is a wise one. Transport him out West, give him a fair start in some Pacific State in a decent business, and then if he goes wrong, after his severe lesson, let him run up against a smart punishment."

Reluctantly convinced, John Witherspoon dropped all his final investigations as to Arthur Ferris' secret career in New York City.

As the months rolled along he saw the justice of the blunt police officer's judgment, for Miss Alice Worthington seemed to be an administering talent of the highest order.

"She would make a Secretary of the Treasury, sir," said the admiring Stillwell. "She is old beyond her years--a rare woman!"

By some vague influence, the personal future designs of Miss Worthington seemed to be a subject tabooed between Witherspoon, his wife, and Doctor Atwater, at the regular weekly dinner at Beechwood, where the young physician was always a stated guest.

Miss Worthington, already a Lady Bountiful, in Detroit, conducted a separate correspondence with the young wife, the husband, and the physician, the last her only confidant in the still unmatured plans of a practical philanthropy.

It was in the early autumn of the year following Randall Clayton's death that Witherspoon sprang up in astonishment, when he unfolded the New York Herald over his morning coffee at Beechwood.

The cabled announcement of the death of the Honorable Arthur Ferris, United States Consul at Amoy, China, was only supplemented by the statement that he had fallen a victim of the coast fever.

"This is the end of all," sadly mused the lawyer, as he saw his immediate duty of repeating the news by telegraph to Detroit.

"Whatever connection Ferris had with the secret designs of Worthington is now a sealed mystery forever; the hand of Death has turned the last page down."

Witherspoon rightly conjectured that to Senator Dunham the death of his once trusted negotiator would be a welcome release from the tyranny of a dangerous past.

"The statesman's immaculate toga is still unsmirched," bitterly commented Witherspoon.

"And now all of Arthur Ferris' busy schemes have come to naught!

His bootless treason, his fruitless intrigue of years, even the hush-money on the one side, the blood-money on the other, are all alike valueless! He lost every trick in life, even with the cards in his own hands." It was a case of the engineer "hoist with his own petard!"

In vain did John Witherspoon await any personal comment from the great heiress. The very name of the dead man was unmentioned in the daily letters from her secretary.

When Doctor Atwater returned from one of his now frequent "business"

visits to Detroit, he shook his head in a grave negation when Witherspoon brought up the name of the dead counsel.

"Something very strange there! Even Boardman and Warner seemed averse to any conversation upon the subject," soberly said Atwater.

"I judge that the memory of Ferris is a most distasteful topic to them all. I presume that the papers of old Hugh probably have revived matters, which might as well be buried in Ferris' lonely grave out there on the shores of the Formosa Strait."