o' ten, better than we can do it by
workin' up into a wax."

Calmed to some extent Allerton went off to the club for breakfast,
being unable to face this meal at home. Steptoe tidied up the room. He
was troubled and yet relieved. It was a desperate case, but he had
always found that in desperate cases desperate remedies were close at
hand.

Chapter V

"See that the poor thing gets some breakfast," had been Allerton's
parting command, and having finished the room, Steptoe went down the
flight of stairs to carry out this injunction.

He was on the third step from the landing when the door of the back
room opened, and a little, gray figure, hatted and jacketed, crept out
stealthily. She was plainly ready for the street, an intention
understood by Beppo, the late Mrs. Allerton's red cocker spaniel, who
was capering about her in the hope of sharing the promenade.

As Steptoe came to a halt, the girl ran toward him.

"Oh, mister, I gotta get out of this swell dump. Show me the way, for
God's sake!"

To say that Steptoe was thinking rapidly would be to describe his
mental processes incorrectly. He never thought; he received
illuminations. Some such enlightenment came to him now, inducing him
to say, ceremoniously, "Madam can't go without 'er breakfast."

"I don't want any breakfast," she protested, breathlessly. "All I want
is to get away. I'm frightened."

"I assure madam that there's nothink to be afryde of in this 'ouse.
Mr. Allerton is the most honorable--" he pronounced the initial
_h_--"young man that hever was born. I valeted 'is father before 'im
and know that 'e wouldn't 'urt a fly. If madam'll trust me--Besides,
Mr. Allerton left word with me as you was to be sure to 'ave your
breakfast, and I shouldn't know how to fyce 'im if 'e was to know that
you'd gone awye without so much as a hegg."

She wrung her hands. "I don't want to see him. I couldn't."

"Madam won't see 'im. 'E's gone for the dye. 'E don't so often heat at
'ome--'ardly never."

Of the courses before her Letty saw that yielding was the easiest.
Besides, it would give her her breakfast, which was a consideration.
Though she had nominally dined on the previous evening, she had not
been able to eat; she had been too terrified. Never would she forget
the things that had happened after she had given her consent in the
Park.

Not that outwardly they had been otherwise than commonplace. It was
going through them at all! The man was as