What had her mother--young and beautiful--been doing during those years, the years of a mother's most anxious devotion and pleasurable interest?
He searched his memory for Club reminiscences of a Marie Delano of twenty years earlier, or less.

No such name rewarded his mental explorations, and Marie Delano was not a name likely to escape.
He exclaimed aloud at his stupidity.

The astute French woman was hardly likely to return to the scene of her former triumphs with an innocent young daughter and an infamous name.

Nor, apparently, had she carried it to Rouen after she had manifestly foresworn vice for the sake of her child, even to the length of resigning herself to the dullness of a provincial town.
But "Jim"?
Her husband?
Could Bisbee have referred to some other Jim who had "croaked" recently?
Such women have more than one Jim in their voluminous lives.
Ruyler had that order of mental temperament to which dubiety is the one unendurable condition; he had none of that cowardice which postpones an unpleasant solution until the inevitable moment.

Whatever this hideous mystery he would solve it as quickly as possible and then put it out of his life.