smile. "The Magistrate could only hold him for
contempt of Court. The girl had absolutely no evidence to support her
accusation of assault. Tugh was finally dismissed. A week later he
murdered the girl.

"The details are unimportant; but he did it. The police had him
trapped in his house; had the house surrounded--this same one on
Patton Place--but when they burst in to take him, he had inexplicably
vanished. He was never heard from again."

Alten continued to regard us with grim, solemn face. "Never heard
from--until to-night. And now we hear of him. How he vanished, with
the police guarding every exit to that house--well, it's obvious,
isn't it? He went into another Time-world. Back to 1777, doubtless."

Mary Atwood gave a little cry. "I had forgotten that I must warn you.
Tugh told me once, before Father and I quarreled with him, that he had
a mysterious power. He was a most wonderful man, he said. And there
was a world in the future--he mentioned 1934 or 1935--which he hated.
A great city whose people had wronged him; and he was going to bring
death to them. Death to them all! I did not heed him. I thought he was
demented, raving...."

* * * * *

Alten's little clock ticked with tumultuous heartbeat through another
silence. The great city around us, even though this was two o'clock
in the morning, throbbed with a myriad of blended sounds.

A warning! Was the girl from out of the past giving us a warning of
coming disaster to this great city?

Alten was pacing the floor. "What are we to do--tell the authorities?
Take Mistress Mary Atwood to Police Headquarters and inform them that
she has come from the year 1777? And that, if we are not careful,
there will be an attack upon New York?"

"No!" I burst out. I could fancy how we would be received at Police
Headquarters if we did that! And our pictures in to-morrow's
newspapers. Mary's picture, with a jibing headline ridiculing us.

"No," echoed Alten. "I have no intention of doing it. I'm not so
foolish as that." He stopped before Mary. "What do you want to do?
You're obviously an exceptionally intelligent, level-headed girl.
Heaven knows you need to be."

"I--I want to get back home," she stammered.

A pang shot through me as she said it. A hundred and fifty years to
separate us. A vast gulf. An impassible barrier.

"That mechanism said it would return!"

"Exactly," agreed Alten. An excitement was upon us all. "Exactly what