-post and remain there all night. The reportorial
news-sense died painlessly.

Suddenly, to his amazement, he saw her run down the steps of her house
and disappear into the area. She was once more at the gate when he
hurried up to her.

"May I--am I----" he stammered. "Is anything the matter?"

For a moment she had shrunk back in alarm, but the narrow silent street
between its ramparts of brown stone was bright with moonlight and she
recognized him.

"Oh, it is you," she said with a faint smile. "I forgot my key and I
cannot make any one hear the bell. The servants sleep on the top
floor, and of course like logs. Yes, you can do something. Are you
willing to break a window, crawl in, and find your way up to the front
door?"

"Watch me!" Clavering forgot that he was saturnine and remote and
turning thirty-four. He took the area steps at a bound. Iron gates
guarded the basement doors, but the old bars on the windows were easily
wrenched out. He lifted his foot, kicked out a pane, found the catch,
opened the window and ran up the narrow dark stairs. There was a light
in the spacious hall and in another moment he had opened the door. He
expected to be dismissed with a word of lofty thanks, but she said in a
tone of casual hospitality:

"There are sandwiches in the library and I can give you a whiskey and
soda."

She walked with a light swift step down the hall, the narrow tail of
her black velvet gown wriggling after her. Clavering followed in a
daze, but his trained eye took note of the fine old rugs and carved
Italian furniture, two splendid tapestries, and great vases of flowers
that filled the air with a drowsy perfume. He had heard of the Ogden
house, built and furnished some fifty years ago. The couple that had
leased it had been childless and it showed little wear. The stairs
curving on the left had evidently been recarpeted, but in a very dull
red that harmonized with the mellow tints of the old house.

She opened a door at the end of the hall on the right and he found
himself in a large library whose walls were covered with books to the
ceiling. Dinwiddie had told him that the Ogdens were bookish people
and that "Mary's" grandfather had been an eminent jurist. The room was
as dark in tone as the hall, but the worn chairs and sofas looked very
comfortable. A log was burning on the hearth.

She took a key from a drawer and handed it to him.

"You will find whiskey and a syphon in that