It was a street of livery-stables, gambling dens,
drinking houses, and worse; murders had been committed along its
sidewalks. The more pretentious _canaille_ of the city harbored there
to prey on the hotels close at hand and aspire to the chance
acquaintance of gentlemen. As Reybold stood in an archway of this
street, just as the evening shadows deepened above the line of sunset,
he saw something pass which made his heart start to his throat and
fastened him to the spot. Veiled and walking fast, as if escaping
detection or pursuit, the figure of Joyce Basil flitted over the
pavement and disappeared in a door about at the middle of this
Alsatian quarter of the capital.

"What house is that?" he asked of a constable passing by, pointing to
the door she entered.

"Gambling den," answered the officer. "It used to be old Phil
Pendleton's."

Reybold knew the reputation of the house: a resort for the scions of
the old tide-water families, where hospitality thinly veiled the
paramount design of plunder. The connection established the truth of
Mrs. Basil's statement. Here, perhaps, already married to the
dissipated heir of some unproductive estate, Joyce Basil's lot was
cast forever. It might even be that she had been tempted here by some
wretch whose villainy she knew not of. Reybold's brain took fire at
the thought, and he pursued the fugitive into the doorway. A negro
steward unfastened a slide and peeped at Reybold knocking in the hall;
and, seeing him of respectable appearance, bowed ceremoniously as he
let down a chain and opened the door.

"Short cards in the front saloon," he said; "supper and faro back.
Chambers on the third floor. Walk up."

Reybold only tarried a moment at the gaming tables, where the silent,
monotonous deal from the tin box, the lazy stroke of the markers, and
the transfer of ivory "chips" from card to card of the sweat-cloth,
impressed him as the dullest form of vice he had ever found. Treading
softly up the stairs, he was attracted by the light of a door partly
ajar, and a deep groan, as of a dying person. He peeped through the
crack of the door, and beheld Joyce Basil leaning over an old man,
whose brow she moistened with her handkerchief. "Dear father," he
heard her say, and it brought consolation to more than the sick man.
Reybold threw open the door and entered into the presence of Mrs.
Basil and her daughter. The former arose with surprise and shame, and
cried:

"Jedge Basil, the Dut