Constance was amazed.  Here was a man who for years had been able to earn only eighty-five dollars a month and had not seemed to show any ability.  Yet he was able to speculate in Wall Street with such dash that he seemed to be in a fair way, through her, to accumulate a fortune.

One night as they were hurrying back to Graeme’s after a walk, they had to pass a crowd on Broadway.  Constance saw a familiar face hurrying by.  It gave her a start.  It was Drummond, the detective.  He was not, apparently, looking for her.  But then that was his method.  He might have been looking.  At any rate it reminded her unpleasantly of the fact that there were detectives in the world.

“What’s the matter?” asked Graeme, noticing the change in her.

“I just saw a man I know.”

The old jealousy flushed his face.  Constance laughed in spite of her fears.  Indeed, there was something that pleased her in his jealousy.

“He was the detective who has been hounding me ever since that time I told you about.”

“Oh,” he subsided.  But if Drummond had been there, Mackenzie could have been counted on to risk all to protect her.

“We must be more careful,” she shuddered.

Constance was startled one evening just as she was going out to meet Graeme and report on the progress of the day at hearing a knock at her door.

She opened it.

“I suppose you think I am your Nemesis,” introduced Drummond, as he stepped in, veiling the keenness of his search by an attempt to be familiar.

She had more than half expected it.  She said nothing, but her coldness was plainly one of interrogation.

“A case has been placed in my hands by some western clients of ours,” he said by way of swaggering explanation, “of an embezzler who is hiding in New York.  It required no great reasoning power to decide that the man’s trail would sooner or later cross Wall Street.  I believe it has done so—­not directly, but indirectly.  The trail, I think, has brought me back to the proverbial point of ’CHERCHEZ La femme.’  I am delighted,” he dwelt on the word to see what would be its effect, “to see in the Graeme Mackenzie case my old friend, Constance Dunlap.”

“So,” she replied quietly, “you suspect me, now.  I suppose I am Graeme Mackenzie.”

“No,” Drummond replied dubiously, “you are not Graeme Mackenzie, of course.  You may be Mrs. Graeme Mackenzie, for all I know.  But I believe you are the receiver of Graeme Mackenzie’s stolen goods!”

“You do?” she answered calmly.  “That remains for you to prove.  Why do you believe it?  Is it because you are ready to believe anything of me!”

“I have noticed that you are more active downtown than—­”

“Oh, it is because I speculate.  Have I no means of my own?” she asked pointedly.

“Where is he?  Not here, I know.  But where?” insinuated Drummond with a knowing look.