"It is separating a man from his wife." And with these engimatical words he made his adieu, with thanks, hastened to the ticket office, and an hour later was scouring the city for one Richard Spears.
The register of the Stillman House contained the freshly written name of "Richard Spears, Providence, R. I.," but that gentleman, when found in his room showing samples of hardware to a prospective buyer, regretted that he could not throw any light on the particular dollar his visitor held up to his gaze, and remembered distinctly that he had given the conductor a two-dollar bill in payment for his berth. He came from a section, he said, where people took no stock in silver dollars.
It was three o'clock in the afternoon when a man got off the train at Erie and inquired of the cabmen and depot master regarding a lady who had arrived on the early train from Buffalo. An hour later he was driving along a country road some miles south of the town inquiring for the Wickliffe farm.
As he finally drove up to the house which was his destination he was conscious of a strange excitement. This, he realized, was probably his only remaining chance to trace the coin by whose mysterious power he had been drawn into this wild chase with the hope of identifying its former owner. He took a hasty note of the general features of the place. It had a comfortable, well-to-do look; a two-story house, white, with green blinds. Most of these were closed, as is customary with country houses, but the windows at the right of the big front door, opening on a small porch, were shaded only by white curtains. There was a sound of voices within as he stepped up to the door and rapped.
Mrs. Wickliffe, a pleasant-faced little woman, sat surrounded by three children and a neighbor's wife, to whom she was displaying some purchases. As one of the children opened the door, admitting the stranger into this animated scene, she was standing before a mirror trying on a new bonnet, which was eliciting extravagant praises from the neighbor.
After listening to his story, Mrs. Wickliffe said that her memory was so treacherous that she really couldn't say for certain whether or not she gave the conductor the shining dollar, but that if she did she must have received it from her son in Germantown,
