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JENNIE ELUDES AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE.
As Jennie rapidly hurried away from the office of Mr.Cadbury Taylor, there arose in her mind some agitation as to what the detective would think of her sudden flight.

She was convinced that, up to the moment of leaving him so abruptly, he had not the slightest suspicion she herself, to whom he was then talking, was the person he had been searching for up and down Europe.

What must he think of one who, while speaking with him, suddenly, without a word of leave-taking, disappeared as if the earth had opened and swallowed her, and all because the handle of the door to the inner room had turned?
Then the excuse she had given for not wishing to meet Lord Donal must have struck him as ridiculously inadequate.
When she reached her desk and reflected with more calmness over the situation, she found no cause to censure herself for her hasty departure; although she had acted on impulse, she saw there had been nothing else to do; another moment and she would have been face to face with Lord Donal himself.
Next day brought a note from the detective which went far to reassure her.

He apologized for having made the appointment without her permission, and explained that Lord Donal's unexpected arrival in London, and his stubborn unbelief that it had been the Princess herself whom he met at the ball, seemingly left the detective no alternative out to call on the person who had so persistently advanced the theory, to explain it to the one most intimately concerned.