re coming toward her.

"Mamie?" she called.

"Hush!" Mamie lifted a warning hand. "The windows are open," she
whispered. "They might hear you!"

"Why haven't you gone to bed?"

"Oh, don't you see?" Mamie answered, in deep distress,--"I've been
sitting up for you. We all thought you were writing letters in your
room, but after papa and mamma had gone to bed I went in to tell you
good night, and you weren't there, nor anywhere else; so I knew you
must have gone out. I've been sitting by the front window, waiting to
let you in, but I went to sleep until a little while ago, when the
telephone-bell rang and he got up and answered it. He kept talking a
long time; it was something about the Tocsin, and I'm afraid there's
been a murder down-town. When he went back to bed I fell asleep again,
and then those darkies woke me up. How on earth did you expect to get
in? Don't you know he always locks up the house?"

"I could have rung," said Ariel.

"Oh--oh!" gasped Miss Pike; and, after she had recovered somewhat,
asked: "Do you mind telling me where you've been? I won't tell
him--nor mamma, either. I think, after all, I was wrong yesterday to
follow Eugene's advice. He meant for the best, but I--"

"Don't think that. You weren't wrong." Ariel put her arm round the
other's waist. "I went to talk over some things with Mr. Louden."

"I think," whispered Mamie, trembling, "that you are the bravest girl I
ever knew--and--and--I could almost believe there's some good in him,
since you like him so. I know there is. And I--I think he's had a
hard time. I want you to know I won't even tell Eugene!"

"You can tell everybody in the world," said Ariel, and kissed her.

XVII

MR. SHEEHAN'S HINTS

"Never," said the Tocsin on the morrow, "has this community been
stirred to deeper indignation than by the cold-blooded and unmitigated
brutality of the deliberate murder committed almost under the very
shadow of the Court-house cupola last night. The victim was not a man
of good repute, it is true, but at the moment of his death he was in
the act of performing a noble and generous action which showed that he
might have become, if he lived, a good and law-fearing citizen. In
brief, he went to forgive his enemy and was stretching forth the hand
of fellowship when that enemy shot him down. Not half an hour before
his death, Cory had repeated within the hearing of a dozen men what he
had been saying all day, as many