he came the money might be still in his possession.

She finished her meal and felt considerably revived. For a while
she sat listening to the hubbub of strange voices without, then the
fear that her presence might be forgotten by the busy occupant of
the office moved her to rise and open the intervening door.

The girl was still there. She glanced round with the same alert
expression. "That you, Mrs. Ranger? He hasn't come in yet. But
you go up and wait for him! It's quieter upstairs. I'll tell him
you're here as soon as he comes in."

She did not want to comply, but certainly the little room adjoining
the office was no place for private talk, and she dreaded the idea
of meeting Guy before the curious eyes of strangers. He would be
startled; he would be ashamed! None but herself must see him in
that moment.

So, without protest, she allowed herself to be conducted upstairs
to the room he had engaged, her friend in the office promising
faithfully not to forget to send him up to her at once.

The room was at the top of the house, a bare apartment but not
uncomfortable. It possessed a large window that looked across the
wide street.

She sat down beside it and listened to the tramping crowds below.

Her faintness had passed, but she was very tired, overwhelmingly
so. Very soon her senses became dulled to the turmoil. She
suffered herself to relax, certain that the first sound of a step
outside would recall her. And so, as night spread over the town,
she sank into sleep, lying back in the cane-chair like a worn-out
child, her burnished hair vivid against the darkness beyond.

She did not wake at the sound of a step outside, or even at the
opening of the door. It was no sound that aroused her hours later,
but a sudden intense consciousness of expediency, as if she had
come to a sharp comer that it needed all her wits to turn in
safety. She started up with a gasp. "Guy!" she said. And then,
as her dazzled eyes saw more clearly, a low, involuntary
exclamation of dismay. "Ah!"

It was Burke who stood with his back against the closed door,
looking at her, and his face had upon it in those first waking
moments of bewilderment a look that appalled her. For it was to
her as the face of a murderer.

CHAPTER XII

THE COST

He did not speak in answer to her exclamation, merely stood there
looking at her, almost as if he had never seen her before. His
eyes were keen with a sort of icy fiercen