hought this important. "I should have
arrived yesterday if your message had come earlier. I got it just
after the train started in the morning."

Mrs. Stephen looked at her daughter, but Lucy offered no explanation.
Foster's abruptness disturbed her. He obviously wanted to understand
the situation, but seemed to think he had no time to lose.

"I sent the telegram half an hour before the office closed and as the
agent goes early you ought to have got it in the evening," she said.

"Then it must have been kept back. Where's Lawrence now?"

"He went to his room with Walters about ten minutes since."

Foster beckoned Pete. "Then I'll go straight up; I know the number."

They went out and Lucy sat down, feeling disturbed but somewhat
comforted. It was plain that Foster shared her fears and knew more
than she did, but in another minute or two he would join his comrade,
and Lawrence would be safe when he was there.

In the meantime, Walters lighted a cigarette Lawrence gave him in his
room and sat down to examine the photographs. There were a number of
views of the mountains and a group of figures occupied the foreground
of several. A guest at the hotel with some talent for photography had
taken the pictures, and after a time Walters picked out two in which
Lucy and Lawrence appeared.

"I'll take these, if I'm not robbing you," he said and waited until
Lawrence put on a Tuxedo jacket, when he resumed: "Well, I suppose we
had better go down. Are you coming?"

He went out and as Lawrence crossed the floor to turn off the light,
called back: "I forgot the pictures; they're on the bureau. The
elevator's coming up and I'll keep it when it's here."

Lawrence told him to do so. The lift had stopped between the floors on
their ascent, and the electric light inside it had gone out, while the
boy said something about his not being able to run it much longer. The
photographs, however, were not on the bureau and Lawrence searched the
room before he found them on the bed. Then he turned off the light and
went into the passage, which was rather dark. The lamp at the shaft
was not burning, but he could see Walters beckoning at the gate.

"He wants to get down before the motor stops," the latter said.

Lawrence hurried along the passage, and when he reached the shaft
Walters put his hand on the folding ironwork.

"Come along; his light's out," he said to Lawrence, and added, as if to
somebody in the lift: "Start he