Faint and heart-sick, Ida May crept down the broad stone steps of the elegant mansion, and wended her way back to her humble lodgings. Just as she was about to touch the bell, a man ran hastily up the steps.

"Well, well, I declare!" he exclaimed, "I am at the wrong house. But in this confounded tenement row, one house is so like the other that one can not help making a mistake now and then."

With a gasp, Ida May reeled backward. At the very first word he had uttered, Ida May had recognized Royal Ainsley.

[80]

It was Frank Garrick, the manager of the telegraph office.

The sentence had scarcely left his lips ere he recognized her.

"Aha!" he cried, a fierce imprecation accompanying the words. "So it's you, Ida May?" he added, catching her fiercely by the cloak. "So I have found you at last!"

She was too frightened to reply.

"So this is where you are stopping, is it? Come, walk as far as the end of the street with me. I want to talk to you."

"No!" cried Ida May, struggling to free herself from his grasp. "I have nothing to say to you, nor will I listen to you!"

"We shall see about that presently," he cried. "Frank Garrick is not a man to be balked in this way by a little girl. You shall listen to me!"

Ida May reached out her hand quickly to touch the bell, but he anticipated the movement, and caught her arm roughly.

She tried to cry out, but no sound issued from her lips.

She had already gone through more than her overstrained nerves could bear. Without a cry or a moan, she sunk in a dead faint at his feet.

Gathering her up in his arms, Frank Garrick sprung quickly down the steps. For a moment he stood there with his helpless burden in his arms.

"This is quite an unexpected go," he muttered, standing there undecided for a moment. "I must leave her here a moment, that is certain, while I run for a man's voice."

[81]

He placed Ida on the the lower step, in a sitting position, and darted down the street in the direction of a cab-stand.

He did not see the open window of an adjoining house, because of the closed blind which protected it, nor the crouching form of the woman behind it, who had heard and witnessed all.

Like a flash she caught up her hat, which was lying on an adjacent table, and sprung out of the door.

"I knew he would come to see her at last!" she said, fairly hissing the words. "They have had a quarrel. That is why he has stayed away so long. He has gone after a cab to take her elsewhere. But I will block his little game!" cried Nannie Rogers—for it was she. "I shall take a terrible revenge upon him by striking him through her."

Taking a short cut to a nearer cab-stand, she hailed the first vehicle. The man sprung down from his box.

"Why, is that you, Nannie?" he cried, in unfeigned surprise.

"Yes, Joe," she answered, quickly. "I want your cab for a while."

In a few words she told him of a woman lying on the steps of the house next to her—a woman whom she wished to befriend.

"I want you to take her to a certain place. I will tell you about it when we start. Come quickly and help me to get her into your cab."

This was accomplished in less time than it takes to tell it.

"Where to, Nannie?" asked the driver, as he picked up the reins.

[82]

"Why in the world are you taking her there?" he exclaimed in dismay.

"Make no comments," she replied, angrily: "but drive on as fast as you can. I wouldn't take her there unless it was all right."

"Oh, of course," returned the driver. "I am not saying but that you know what you're doing. But she seems mighty quiet for that kind of a person."

They had scarcely turned the first corner ere Frank Garrick drove up in a cab.

"By thunder! she has vanished!" he exclaimed, excitedly, looking in astonishment at the spot where he had left her a short time before. "She must have fled into the house," he muttered. "Well, cabby, here's your fee, anyhow. You may as well go back."

For some moments Frank Garrick stood quite still and looked up at the house.

"Of all places in the world, who would have expected to find her here—next door to Nannie. It's certain that Nannie does not know of it. She could not keep it if she did. Well, this is a pretty howdy-do—two rivals living next door to each other. Nannie is expecting me to call on her this evening. If it were not for that, I wouldn't show up at all, I'm so upset by that little beauty, Ida May."

Very slowly he walked up the steps of the adjoining house and pulled the bell. To his great surprise, he learned that Nannie was out.

"She will be sure to be back presently," added the girl who answered the bell. "Won't you come in and wait?"

"No," he answered, glad of the excuse. "I'll run in some evening during the week."

[83]

With that he turned on his heel and walked rapidly away.

Meanwhile, the carriage bearing Nannie Rogers and the still unconscious Ida May rolled quickly onward, and stopped at length before a red-brick building on the outskirts of the city.

Ida May's swoon lasted so long that even Nannie grew frightened.

"Wait," she said to the driver, "I will have to step in first and see if they will receive her."

After fully five minutes had elapsed, the door opened and a tall man looked out.

&quo............