at the world on baked beans. Where's Ess? I'd like to see her."

"Yes; tell her we're here," chorused the others.

Mrs. Terriberry's moment had come. She drew herself up in a pose of
hauteur which a stout person can only achieve with practice.

"Miss Tisdale," she replied with glib gusto, "is engaged at present and
begs to be excused. But," she added in words which were obviously her
own, "you can put your junk in the closet over there with the rest
that's come."

* * * * *

Dr. Harpe understood perfectly now the meaning of the Dago Duke's
confident smile and the stranger's cold, searching look of enmity. He
was no weakling, this new-found relative of Essie Tisdale's, and the
Dago Duke's threats were no longer empty boastings.

If only she could sleep! Sleep? Was it days or weeks since she had
slept? Forebodings, suspicions of those whom she had been forced to
trust, Nell Beecroft, Lamb, and others, were spectres that frightened
sleep from her strained eyes. A tight band seemed stretched across her
forehead. She rubbed it hard, as though to lessen the tension. There was
a dull ache at the base of her brain and she shook her head to free
herself from it, but the jar hurt her.

Some one whistled in the corridor. She listened.

"Farewell, my own dear Napoli, Farewell to Thee, Farewell to Thee----"
How she hated that song! The Dago Duke was coming for his answer.

He stood before her with his hat in his hand, the other hand resting on
his hip smiling, confident, the one long, black lock of hair hanging
nearly in his eyes. He made no comment, but she saw that he was noting
the ravages which the intervening hours had left in her face. Beneath
his smile there was something hard and pitiless--a look that the
executioner of a de Medici might have worn--and for a moment it put her
at a loss for words. Then with an attempt at her old-time camaraderie,
she shoved a glass toward him--

His white teeth flashed in a fleeting smile--

"If you will join me--in my last drink?"

For answer she filled his glass and hers.

He raised it and looked at her.

"I give you--the sweetest thing in the world."

Her lip curled.

"Love?"

His black eyes glittered between their narrowed lids.

"The power to avenge the wrongs of the helpless."

He set down his empty glass and fumbled in his pocket for a paper which
he handed her to read.

"It's always well to know what you're signing," he