uselessness of further objection, yet he ventured to say,
"The place where he has gone is one of the worst in the city; a spot
which men hesitate to enter after dark. You don't know what you ask in
begging me to take you there."

"I do, I realize everything."

With a sudden awe of the great love which he thus beheld embodied before
him, Bertram bowed his head and moved towards the door. "I may consider
it wise to obtain the guidance of a policeman through the quarter into
which we are about to venture. Will you object to that?"

"No," was her quick reply, "I object to nothing but delay."

And with a last look about the room, as if some sensation of farewell
were stirring in her breast, she laid her hand on Bertram's arm, and
together they hurried away into the night.

BOOK V.

WOMAN'S LOVE.

XLI.

THE WORK OF AN HOUR.

Base is the slave that pays."--HENRY V.

"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned,
Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned."
--CONGREVE.

Mr. Sylvester upon leaving the bank, had taken his usual route up town.
But after an aimless walk of a few blocks, he suddenly paused, and with
a quiet look about him, drew from his pocket the small slip of paper
which Bertram had laid on his table the night before, and hurriedly
consulted its contents. Instantly an irrepressible exclamation escaped
him, and he turned his face to the heavens with the look of one who
recognizes the just providence of God. The name which he had just read,
was that of the old lover of Jacqueline Japha, Roger Holt, and the
address given, was 63 Baxter Street.

Twilight comes with different aspects to the broad avenues of the rich,
and the narrow alleys of the poor. In the reeking slums of Baxter
Street, poetry would have had to search long for the purple glamour that
makes day's dying hour fair in open fields and perfumed chambers. Even
the last dazzling gleam of the sun could awaken no sparkle from the
bleared windows of the hideous tenement houses that reared their blank
and disfigured walls toward the west. The chill of the night blast and
the quick dread that follows in the steps of coming darkness, were all
that could enter these regions, unless it was the stealthy shades of
vice and disease.

Mr. Sylvester standing before the darkest and most threatening of the
many dark and threatening houses that cumbered the street, was a sight
to draw m