red. A girl stood before them
in the doorway. Anitra, with cheeks ablaze and eyes burning, her
traveling dress flapping damp about her heels, and on her head the red
shawl she preferred to any hat. Behind her shoulder peered the anxious
face of Mrs. Deo.

"I'm going out," cried the former in the loud and unmodulated voice of
the deaf. "He don't come back! he don't come back! I'm going to see why."

The lawyer rose and bowed; then resolutely shook his head. He did not
know whether she had appealed to him or not. She had not looked at him,
had not looked at any one, but he felt that he must protest.

"I beg you not to do so," he began. "I really beg you to remain here and
wait with me. You can do no good and the result may be dangerous." But he
knew he was talking to deaf ears even before the landlady murmured:

"She doesn't hear a word. I've talked and talked to her. I've used every
sign and motion I could think of, but it's done no good. She would dress
and she will go out; you'll see."

The next minute her prophecy came true; the wild thing, with a quick
whirl of her lithe body, was at the front door, and in another instant
had flashed through it and was gone.

"It is my duty to follow her," said the lawyer. "Help me on with my coat;
I'll find some one to guide me."

"Here is a lantern. Excuse me for not going with you," pleaded Mrs. Deo,
"but some one must watch the house."

The New Yorker nodded, took the lantern offered him, and went stoically
out.

He met a man on the walk in front. He was faced his way and was panting
heavily.

"Hello," said he, "what news?"

"They haven't found her; but there's no doubt she went over the fall. The
fellow who calls himself her husband has just been reading a letter they
say she left on her bureau for him. It was a good-by, I reckon, for you
can't tear him from the spot. He says he'll stay there till daylight. I
couldn't stand the sight of his misery myself. Besides, it's mortal cold;
I've just been running to get warm. Who was the girl who just went
scurrying by out of here? It's no place for wimmen down there. One lost
gal is enough."

"That's what I think," muttered the lawyer, hurrying on.

He was not a very imaginative man; some of his best friends thought him a
cold and prosaic one, but he never forgot that walk or the sensations
accompanying it. Dark as it still was, the way would have been impassable
for a stranger, had it not been for the guidance given by