As she limped up the gravel walk, he watched her closely.  She went to the door and rang the bell, and the valet admitted her.

Del Mar was still sitting, thinking, in the library.

“Mr. Del Mar?” she inquired.

The voice was not exactly soft, and Del Mar eyed her suspiciously.  Was this the person he expected, or a “plant?”

“Yes,” he answered, guardedly, “I am Mr. Del Mar.  And you?”

The widow, too, evidently wished to make no mistake.  As she spoke, she raised her hand.  By that simple action she displayed a curious and conspicuous seal ring on her finger.  It was the sign of the ring for which Del Mar had been waiting.

He extended his own left hand.  On the ring finger was another ring, but not similar.  As he did so, the widow took the ring from her own finger and placed it on the little finger of Del Mar.

“Good!” he exclaimed.

Every action of the sign of the ring had been carried out.

The woman raised her thick veil, disclosing the face of—­a man!

It was the same face, also, that had appeared in the photograph sent to the old fisherman by Woodward.

Awkwardly, the man searched in the front of his shirtwaist and drew forth a paper which Del Mar almost seized in his eagerness.  It was a pen and ink copy of a Government map, showing a huge spit of sand in the sea before a harbor, Sandy Hook and New York.  On it were indicated all the defenses, the positions of guns, everything.

Together, Del Mar and Smith bent over it, while the renegade clerk explained each mark on the traitorous map.  They were too occupied to see a face flattened against the pane of a window near-by.

The chauffeur had no intention of remaining inactive outside while he knew that something that interested him was transpiring inside.  He had crept up by the side of the house to the window.  But he could see little and hear nothing.

A moment he strained every sense.  It was no use.  He must devise some other way.  How could he get into that room?  Slowly he returned to his car, thinking it over.  There he stood for a moment revolving in his mind what to do.  He looked up the road.  An idea came to him.  There he saw a little runabout approaching rapidly.

Quickly he went around to the front of his car and lifted up the hood.  Then he bent over and pretended to be tinkering with his engine.

As the car was about to pass he deliberately stepped back, apparently not seeing the runabout, and was struck and knocked down.

The runabout stopped, the emergency brakes biting hard.

. . . . . . .

Elaine had asked me to go shopping in the village with her that afternoon.  While I waited for her in her little car, she came down at last, carrying a little handbag.  We drove off a moment later.

It was a delightful ride, not too warm, but sunny.  Without realizing it, we found ourselves on the road that led past Del Mar’s.