Involuntarily the child
stirred. In that instant a black-masked face turned toward her and Tania
gave the single, terrified scream that Madge had heard. Before Tania
could call out again, a handkerchief was tied so closely around her mouth
that she could make no further sound.

A moment later the mysterious, sinister visitor picked the child up in
his arms and bore her swiftly and quietly away from the shelter of the
houseboat and her beloved friends. The little girl was very slender, yet
her abductor staggered as he walked. He had something besides Tania that
he was carrying.

About a quarter of a mile from the houseboat Tania was dumped into the
rear end of an automobile and covered with a heavy steamer blanket. Then
the automobile started off through the night, going faster and faster, it
seemed to her, with each hour of darkness that remained.

At times the little prisoner slept. When she awakened she cried softly to
herself, wondering who had stolen away with her and what was now to
become of her. But Tania was only a child of the streets and she had been
reared in a harder school than other happier children, so she made no
effort to cry out or escape. She knew there was no one near to hear her,
and the motor car was moving so swiftly that she could not possibly
escape from it.

Tania and her unknown companion must have ridden all night. Evidently the
driver of the car had not cared about the roads. He had pushed through
heavy sand and ploughed over deep holes regardless of his machine. Speed
was the only thing he thought of.

By and by the automobile stopped, after a particularly bad piece of
traveling. The driver got down, lifted Tania, still wrapped in her
blanket, in his arms and carried her inside a house. The child first saw
the light in an old room, up several flights of steps, which was drearier
and more miserable than anything she had ever beheld in her life in the
tenements. It was big and mouldy, and dark with cobwebs swinging like
dusty curtains over the windows that had not been washed for years. The
windows looked out over a swamp that was thick with old trees.

But Tania saw none of these things when the blanket was first lifted from
her head. She gave a gasp of fright and horror. For the first time she
now realized that her captor was her childhood's enemy and evil genius,
Philip Holt.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, with a long-drawn sigh that was almost a sob, "it is
_you_! Why have you brought me