st be about looking after her."

"A child?" Nancy cried, astonished.

"Yes, a little girl. She's probably sitting up for me, poor baby. Can
you get home alone, if I put you on a bus or a street-car?"

"If you'll call a taxi for me--" Nancy said.

She noticed that the check was paid with change instead of a bill. In
fact, her host seemed not to have a bill of any denomination in his
pocket, but to be undisturbed by the fact. He parted from her
casually.

"Good-by, child," he said with his head in the door after he had given
the chauffeur her street number; "with the permission of _le bon
Dieu_, we shall see each other again. I feel that He is going to give
it to us."

"Good-by," Nancy said to his retreating shoulder.

At her own front door was Dick's big Rolls-Royce, and Dick sitting
inside of it, with his feet comfortably up, feigning sleep.

"You didn't think I'd go home until I saw you safe inside your own
door, did you?" he demanded.

"Where's Betty?" Nancy asked mechanically.

"I sent Williams home with her. Then he came back here, and left the
car with me."

"You needn't have waited," Nancy said, "I'm sorry, Dick, I--I had to
have air. I had to get out. I couldn't stay inside a minute longer."

"You need never explain anything to me."

"Don't you want to know where I've been?"

Dick looked at her carefully before he made his answer. Then he said
firmly.

"No, dear."

"I might have told you," she said, "if you had wanted to know." She
felt her knees sagging with fatigue, and drooped against the
door-frame.

"Come and sit in the car, and talk to me for a minute," he suggested.
"Do you good, before you climb the stairs."

He opened the car door for her ingratiatingly, but she shook her
head.

"I've done unconventional things enough for one evening," she said.
"Unlock the door for me. Hitty'll be waiting up to take care of me."

"What's that queer thing you're wearing?" he asked her, as he held the
door for her to pass through, "I never remember seeing you wear that
before."

Nancy looked down wonderingly at the folds of the Inverness still
swinging from her shoulders. She had been subconsciously aware of the
grateful warmth in which she was encased ever since she snuggled
comfortably into the depths of the taxi-cab into which Collier Pratt
had tucked her.

"No, I never _have_ worn it before," she said, answering Dick's
question.

CHAPTER V

SCIENCE

The activities of the da