"Oh! do not touch it, my dear young lady!" cried Katie, rushing into the room and seizing the lemonade with hands that were trembling. "Listen, miss," she cried in an awful whisper. "They put something into it—the lemonade is drugged!"

[66]

Ida May looked at her with the utmost astonishment. She could scarcely understand her words.

"I saw them do it!" repeated the girl. "I heard him say, 'Put in enough, and it will make her sleep soundly.' It was a white powder he had brought with him," the maid went on, excitedly. "Oh, he makes such a dupe of my poor mistress! He has hypnotized her so that she is afraid to say that her soul is her own. I heard a great deal more that he said, but I can not tell you now. All I can do is to warn you. Go away from here as quickly as you can. They are enemies of yours, both of them."

The girl's words terrified Ida May. She recalled Frank Garrick's words as he walked along the street beside her.

"Take care! beware, girl! You had better not make an enemy of me! If you do, you will rue the hour! For I can make it very unpleasant for you. Ay, you will be sorry that you were ever born."

She had made an enemy of him, and now he was about to take some terrible revenge upon her. She did not have time to exchange another word with the maid, for she had fled from the room as quickly as she had entered it, and she was left alone with her conflicting thoughts.

The window was open, and she threw the contents of the glass out on the pavement below.

She had scarcely set it down, before Mrs. Cole glided into the room.

"Ah! you have drunk the lemonade. That's right!" she added in a triumphant tone. "But I won't sit down to talk to you to-night; you look sleepy. I would advise you to retire at once."

[67]

Ida looked at her steadily, remembering the startling words that Katie had whispered in her ears. Was this a woman or a fiend incarnate? Ida wondered.

Her footsteps had scarcely died away ere Ida took down a long dark cloak, and hurriedly donning it, together with her hat and veil, she gathered her effects together, and thrusting them into a hand-bag, stole silently as a shadow out into the darkened hall. As she passed the sitting-room door she heard the sound of voices.

Frank Garrick was still there.

In the shadow of the vestibule door she saw Katie waiting for her.

"Good-bye, and God bless you, Ida May!" she said, holding out her rough, toil-worn little hand.

"Good-bye, and thank you for the service you have rendered me," she answered, with deep feeling. "If we ever meet again, perhaps it may be in my power to repay you," added Ida, the tears standing out on her long lashes.

She little dreamed that the hour would come when she would be called upon to remember that promise.

Out of the house she stole, out into the darkness of the street.

At last, when faint and almost falling down from exhaustion, she ran directly into the arms of a blue coat who was leisurely passing a corner.

"Halloo there, my good girl!" he cried. "What are you doing out at this hour of the night?"

Trembling piteously, and all unnerved at this unexpected encounter, for a moment the girl was speechless.

[68]

"I am trying to find shelter until to-morrow morning, sir," she said. "Then I shall look for work."

But the officer would not parley with her. He grasped her by the arm, and was forcing the sobbing girl along, when he was suddenly confronted by a young man who was passing, and who had witnessed the affair.

"Officer," he said, sternly, "this is an outrage. Why do you not let that young girl go her way in peace? Why do you molest her?"

"It's my duty to run in every girl who walks the street at night, without a justifiable reason."

"Let me be responsible for this young woman," said the man. "I believe what she told you to be true—that she wants to find a place to stop until day-break, and then she will look for work."

The officer recognized the young man at once.

"If you will vouch for her," he said, "why, she can go her way, certainly."

"I think I'm a tolerably good judge of character," returned the young man, "and I see nothing in her face to mistrust. Take her to one of the missions near at hand. She can certainly stay there till morning."

The policeman made a low bow, and the young man passed on.

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