ble for the
ruin that lies before you clear as Hell."

The girl quailed before the energy of his words.

"Cab, sir?" called the driver of a hansom the lights of which had
twinkled from a judicious distance for some time past.

Flint raised his finger in acquiescence, and the hansom rattled up to
the curbstone. Flint handed Tilly Marsden into it with his habitual
deference, gave a street and number to the driver, and, jumping in
himself, slammed to the half doors with a clang which echoed along the
silent street. The driver cracked his whip over the horse's head as if
he were about to drive him at a desperate pace; but the animal,
familiar with the noisy demonstration and recognizing it as intended
for the encouragement of the passengers within the vehicle and not
conveying any special warning to himself, set off at his customary
jog-trot.

A man who had been standing in the shadow of a house moved out and
stood a moment under the quivering nimbus of the electric light. His
brow darkened as he looked after the retreating cab.

"Curse him!" he muttered.

Flint and his companion drove on unwitting of the vengeance-breeding
wrath behind them. For a time they kept silence, each absorbed in his
own thoughts. Flint was unpleasantly conscious that the girl was
crying behind her veil, but realizing that he had no consolation to
offer, he wisely let her alone, and before many minutes the novelty of
her surroundings began to tell upon Tilly's grief.

"Whose house is that?" she asked in a broken voice, as they passed a
brilliantly lighted hotel. She had read so much of the palaces of the
millionnaires that a fourteen-story private dwelling did not strike
her as at all unexpected.

"She will recover," Flint murmured cynically to himself. His mind was
working rapidly now. Like many contemplative men, once roused to
definite action he was capable of great energy and direct executive
ability. He planned every detail of the coming interview, met every
emergency, was prepared for every event.

As the cab drew up before the Anstice door, he noted with relief that
the lights above were bright and those on the parlor floor subdued.
"No company, thank Heaven! and the family upstairs," was his comment.
What he most dreaded now was Winifred's being out. He wondered if in
that event he should have courage to ask for Miss Standish, and had
almost persuaded himself that he would, when McGregor, to the comfort
of his soul, admitted tha