r throat filled--"no," she added
with difficulty, "just go, please."

"Sylvia, I beg of you," Miss Lacey came forward, face and voice
perturbed, and attempted to take her niece's hand.

Sylvia fell back a step. "You said everything a few minutes ago, Aunt
Martha. Nothing could make any difference now. Good-by. Go, or else I
must."

"Why, it's impossible, it's unheard of!" Tears sprang to Miss Martha's
eyes, but Dunham took her arm and led her to the door, and while a sob
of anxiety struggled in her breast he hurried her to the elevator and
out upon the street, and at once hailed an approaching car.

"Do you wish to go right to the station, or to do errands?" he asked.

"Oh, _errands_!" exclaimed Miss Lacey wildly. "Who could think of
errands!"

"Well, this car will take you to the station. I have some business to
attend to, but shall probably catch the same train you do."

The car stopped. Dunham helped his bewildered companion to enter, and
stepping back to the sidewalk, walked half a block in the opposite
direction with business-like haste. Then he turned on his heel,
observed that no stoppage in the street had detained Miss Martha's
noisy conveyance, and striding back to the hotel, he reentered the
dingy elevator.

He knew that there could scarcely be a more deserted, isolated spot at
this hour of the day than the parlor of the old hotel; and it was as he
hoped. The girl had not left it. He descried the slender black figure
at once. She was clinging hopelessly with both hands to one of the
sodden hangings and sobbing into its heavy folds.

He went up to her. "Pardon me. I've come back. Please don't do that."

She lifted her swollen eyes in surprise for a moment and then hid them.

"What right have you!" she murmured.

"None, but I couldn't do anything else, of course. You can see that.
Come over here and sit down, please. Somebody might come in."

The girl controlled her sobs; but kept her face hidden. "I don't want
to talk to you," she gasped.

"I know you don't. It makes it rather awkward. Is there any one else in
Boston--any one I could go and bring to you?"

She rubbed her soft little curls into the aged hangings in a hopeless
negative.

"Say!" said Dunham, in acute protest, "would you mind taking your head
out of that curtain? Why, it might give you typhoid fever."

"I've just had it," replied the girl chokingly. "That's why I'm so weak
and--and--Oh, if I could just telegraph to Nat!"

"If