ning following her arrival in
Chicago. At daybreak she rose and peered trough the window into a gray
and unimpressive side street; then, disinclined to return to bed, she
slowly began dressing.

Presently a sharp knock sounded upon her door. Somewhat surprised, she
opened it far enough to see a middle-aged woman attired in nurse's
uniform standing in the dim hallway.

"Miss Jones? Miss Alora Jones?" questioned the woman in a soft voice.

"Yes; what is it?"

"I've a message for you. May I come in?"

Alora, fearful that Mary Louise or the Colonel might have been taken
suddenly ill, threw wide the door and allowed the woman to enter. As
the nurse closed the door behind her Alora switched on the electric
light and then, facing her visitor, for the first time recognized her
and gave a little cry of surprise.

"Janet!"

"Yes; I am Janet Orme, your mother's nurse."

"But I thought you abandoned nursing after you made my father give you
all that money," an accent of scorn in her tone.

"I did, for a time," was the quiet answer. "'All that money' was not a
great sum; it was not as much as your father owed me, so I soon took up
my old profession again."

The woman's voice and attitude were meek and deprecating, yet Alora's
face expressed distrust. She remembered Janet's jaunty insolence at her
father's studio and how she had dressed, extravagantly and attended
theatre parties and fashionable restaurants, scattering recklessly the
money she had exacted from Jason Jones. Janet, with an upward sweep of
her half veiled eyes, read the girl's face clearly, but she continued
in the same subdued tones:

"However, it is not of myself I came here to speak, but on behalf of
your mother's old friend, Doctor Anstruther."

"Oh; did he send you here?"

"Yes. I am his nurse, just now. He has always used me on his important
cases, and now I am attending the most important case of all--his own."

"Is Dr. Anstruther ill, then?" asked Alora.

"He is dying. His health broke weeks ago, as you may have heard, and
gradually he has grown worse. This morning he is sinking rapidly; we
have no hope that he will last through the day."

"Oh, I'm sorry for that!" exclaimed Alora, who remembered the kindly
old doctor with real affection. He had been not only her mother's
physician but her valued friend.

"He learned, quite by accident, of your arrival here last evening,"
Janet went on, "and so he begged me to see you and implore you to com