either side. They reached the main road without incident and turned
north toward the station. Not a word had been spoken as they passed
along the driveway, for Marsh had been too intent upon keeping a
keen watch to think of words, and the depressing atmosphere of the
place had evidently begun to affect Miss Atwood. In fact, Marsh
thought that she seemed to brighten as soon as they passed through
the gateway.

"Are you in the real estate business, Mr. Marsh?" she asked.

"No," he replied. "What made you think that?"

"You never told me what your business was," she answered, "and your
coming out here to look at that house today gave me the idea that
you might be interested in real estate."

"No," he said, "I am not interested in real estate," then added,
evasively, but not quite untruthfully, "I am planning, however, to
go into some sort of business in Chicago."

The fact was that since meeting this girl, Marsh had began to take
an entirely different view of life. He looked back upon his
wanderings and realized the emptiness of the passing years. It
seemed to him now that a man could ask for nothing more than to
settle down to some regular employment in such a wonderful city, and
go home every night to find this girl waiting for him.

Marsh stepped off the motor bus at Oak Street to keep his
appointment with Hunt. He reflected that he had never seen a street
so representative of Chicago and its rapid growth. At his back was
the great new Drake Hotel and the whole neighborhood was one of
wealth and fashion. Yet, as he passed along the street, he noticed
tiny frame or brick dwellings nestling shoulder to shoulder with
obviously wealthy homes, and here and there the dark, towering
structures of old and new apartment buildings. He found Hunt's
apartment in one of the new buildings and paused for a moment on the
curb to look it over. Though handsome architecturally and modern in
every respect, there was a peculiar sombreness about the building,
and the bright lamps that gleamed at the entrance but served to
exaggerate the dim interior of the hallway.

Not realizing exactly why he did so, but probably responding to an
instinct for caution, Marsh strolled back and forth before entering
the building. He noted the two dark and narrow alleyways on either
side. One of these, reached through a dim, deep recess in the front
wall, was evidently the tradesmen's entrance. Marsh then entered the
vestibule and pushed the bell un