erating strokes, a chastened little figure slid out of
the great chair, and groped its way slowly, painfully along until it
reached Claire's side.

"I will--be--good!" Radcliffe whispered chokingly, so low she had to
bend her head to hear.

Claire laid her arms about him and he clung to her neck, trembling.

CHAPTER XI

It was almost ten o'clock when Claire left the house. She waited to see
Radcliffe properly fed, and put to bed, before she went. She covered him
up, and tucked him in as, in all his life, he had never been covered up,
and tucked in, before. Then, dinnerless and faint, she slipped out into
the bleak night.

She was too exhausted to feel triumphant over her conquest. The only
sensations she realized were a dead weariness that hung on her spirit
and body like a palpable weight, and, far down in her heart, something
that smouldered and burned like a live ember, ready to burst forth and
blaze at a touch.

She had walked but a block or two when, through her numbness, crept a
dim little shadow of dread. At first it was nothing more than an inner
suggestion to hasten her steps, but gradually it became a conscious
impulse to outstrip something or some one behind her--some one or
something whose footfalls, resounding faintly through the deserted
street, kept such accurate pace with her own, that they sounded like
their echo.

It was not until she had quickened her steps, and found that the
other's steps had quickened, too, not until she had slowed down to
almost a saunter, only to discover that the one behind was lagging also,
that she acknowledged to herself she was being followed.

Then, from out the far reaches of her memory, came the words of Aunt
Amelia's formula: "Sir, you are no gentleman. If you were a gentleman--"
But straightway followed Martha's trenchant criticism.

"Believe _me_, that's rot! It might go all right on the stage, for a
girl to stop, an' let off some elercution while the villain still
pursued her, but here in New York City it wouldn't work. Not on your
life it wouldn't. Villains ain't pausin' these busy days, in their mad
careers, for no recitation-stunts, I don't care how genteel you get 'em
off. If they're on the job, you got to step lively, an' not linger
'round for no sweet farewells. Now, you got your little temper with you,
all right, all right! If you also got a umbrella, why, just you make a
_com_bine o' the two an'--aim for the bull's eye, though his nose will