He'll come out all
right. I shan't visit on him the extravagance of my own folly. I am a
Christian now." And with this encouraging remark he closed the door and
I found myself alone in the dark alley.

My first sense of relief came from the coolness of the night air on my
flushed forehead and cheeks. After the stifling atmosphere of this
underground room, reeking with the fumes of the lamp and the heat of a
struggle which his dogged confidence in himself had made so unequal, it
was pleasurable just to sense the quiet and the cool of the night and
feel myself released from the bondage of a presence from which I had
frequently recoiled but had never thoroughly felt the force of till
to-night; my next, from the touch and voice of my partner who at that
moment rose from before the basement windows where he had evidently been
lying for a long time outstretched.

"What have you two been doing down there?" was his very natural
complaint. "I tried to listen, I tried to see; but beyond a few
scattered words when your voices rose to an excited pitch, I have
learned nothing but that you were in no danger save from the overthrow
of your scheme. That has failed, has it not? You would have interrupted
me long ago if you had found the child."

"Yes," I acknowledged, drawing him down the alley, "I have failed for
to-night, but I start afresh to-morrow. Though how I can rest idle for
nine hours, not knowing under what roof, if under any, that doomed
innocent may be lying, I do not know."

"You must rest; you are staggering with fatigue now."

"Not a bit of it, only with uncertainty. I don't see my way. Let us go
down street and see if any news has come over the wires since I left
Homewood."

"But first, what a spooky old house that is! And what did the old
gentleman have to say of your tumbling in on him from space without a
'By your leave' or even an 'Excuse me'? Tell me about it."

I told him enough to allay his curiosity. That was all I thought
necessary,--and he seemed satisfied. Jupp is a good fellow, quite
willing to confine himself to his particular end of the business which
does not include the thinking end. Why should it?

There was no news--this we soon learned--only some hints of a
contemplated move on the part of the police in a district where some low
characters had been seen dragging along a resisting child of an
unexpectedly refined appearance. As no one could describe this child and
as I had refused from the fi