u, Miss,"
he said. "There's a desperate man behind this deed. And it was no
ordinary woman who drew him into danger. Don't blame poor Clayton. He
may have met her as a mere fashion-plat on the Avenue. Who knows?"

An hour after the officer had departed, Alice Worthington saw
the two friends disappear, walking away unconcernedly, arm in arm.
She turned away from the drawing-room window, in a stormy burst of
sorrow.

"My father!" she gasped. And then, seeking the refuge of her own
room, she hid her tell-tale face. "Even if it leads up to the guilty
past, I can defend his memory. He was guiltless of this crime; and
Randall Clayton's name shall be cleared of all stain!"

Over her virgin heart came the memory of the cold bargain which
had linked her name to the crafty Ferris.

"Never, never, so help me, God! shall he lay his hand again in
mine!"

For the first time in her life she felt the delicious power of
wealth. Only the silver-haired Lemuel Boardman knew of the armed
neutrality now secretly arranged, which was to buy a legal separation
after six months from her nominal husband in that obscure Western
State.

"Thank God!" she cried. "The sale of his honor, his manhood, for
one hundred thousand dollars will seal his lips. He will keep his
bargain; but, if he should be found guilty?"

All that night the heiress tossed upon uneasy pillows, waiting for
the tidings which might in time parade her name as the innocent
wife of a desperate felon.

The motley crowd pouring along the Bowery at ten o'clock swept past
the Cooper Union on either side in search of the garish delights of
the oblong oasis of pleasure. Down Fourth Avenue from the Square,
down along Third Avenue, they swarmed.

Eager, hard-faced men; painted, hopeless-eyed women, the vacuous
visitor from "Wayback," drunken soldiers, stray sailors, lost
marines, all were kaleidoscopically mingled.

The strident voices of street peddlers mingled with the hoarse
seductions of pullers-in.

Hebraic venders beamed alluringly from their open doors, gin
palaces, shooting galleries, mock auctions, second-hand stores
and brilliantly-lit "dives" awaited the unwary. "Coffee parlors,"
museums, cheap theaters, and music halls, as well as the "side
rooms," were thronged with those pitiless-eyed Devil's children,
the women of the night side of New York!

Roar of elevated train, clang of street cars, hurrying dash of the
ambulance, wild onward career of the fire engi