work at the Club was quite absorbing, especially because the executive secretary, whose assistant I was, was occasionally ill, which threw her work upon my shoulders in addition to my own routine work. I had been far from well myself all winter, and it was only by observing early-to-bed hours that I was able to carry on. I liked the atmosphere of the Club and came in contact with interesting people, and, for the period which I planned to go through in my immediate endeavor to seek a divorce, it was conventionally a good place for me to be employed.
I had, as I have stated, always felt that there had been some provision made by Mr. Harding for me to care for our daughter, and, after my failure in marriage, it seemed to me I ought, for Elizabeth Ann's sake, to ascertain whether or not such a bequest existed. But even so it did not occur to me to go then to the Hardings, feeling that, since Mr. Harding had not chosen to confide his long-continued relations with me to any member of his family during his health-time, it was not likely he had done so just before his death. The most logical person, in my opinion, and the man who most likely could tell me to whom to go if he himself did not know about such a bequest, was Tim Slade. He it was who had met me so many times and had escorted me to the White House, and had come to Eagle Bay and Chicago with funds from Mr. Harding. I knew Tim Slade had long since made a change from the governmental secret service to the brokerage business, but I did not know of any further changes he had made. So, not knowing where to address him now, I merely sent my letter to him at Washington, and apparently this address was sufficient.
My first note simply greeted him after the stretch of more than two years since I had last seen him, and I wrote that if he ever came to New York I would be glad to see him. To this letter,
