an important letter, as the old building held no
mail-chute. While these reflections passed slowly through his mind, his
car rose as slowly. To the mentally fuming young man at his side its
progress was intolerably deliberate. He held himself in, however, and
even went through the pantomime of pausing in the top-floor hall to
search a pocket as if for a latch-key.

Satisfied, the attendant started the elevator on its descent, and as it
sank from sight Laurie looked around him for Number Twenty-nine. He
discovered it in an eye-flash, on the door at the right. The next
instant he had reached this door and was softly turning the knob.

The door did not yield. He had not expected it to give, and he knew
exactly what he meant to do. He stepped back a few feet, then with a
rush hurled his shoulder against the wood with the full force of his
foot-ball training in the effort. The lock yielded, and under the force
of his own momentum the visitor shot into the room. Then, recovering his
equilibrium, he pushed the door into place and stood with his back
against it, breathing heavily and feeling rather foolish.

He was staring at the girl before him, who had risen at his entrance.
Her expression was so full of astonished resentment, and so lacking in
any other emotion, that for a sickening moment he believed he had made
an idiot of himself, that he had not really seen what he thought he had
seen in the glass. A small table separated him from the girl. Still
staring at her, in the long seconds that elapsed before either spoke, he
saw that she had swept her right hand behind her back, in a swift,
instinctive effort to hide what it held. His self-possession returned.
He had not been mistaken. He smiled at her apologetically.

"I beg your pardon," he said. "I'm afraid I frightened you."

"You did." She spoke tensely, the effect of overstrained nerves
revealing itself in her low voice. "What do you mean by it? What are you
doing here?"

Laurie's brilliant eyes were on hers as she spoke, and held them
steadily. Under his expression, one that few had seen on his face, her
look of antagonism softened a little. He advanced slowly to the table
between them.

"It will take a few minutes to explain," he said. Then, as she waited,
he suddenly formed his plan, and followed the good old Devon principle
of going straight to the point.

"I live diagonally across the square," he said quietly, "and I can see
into your window from one of mine