Anthony left the counting-room and started up Water Street. Directly ahead, a carriage was drawn up close to the foot-path, and the traffic of the street was ill-humoredly skirting it. As the young man was on the point of passing, he heard a woman's voice; turning his head he saw Mademoiselle Lafargue leaning from the open window of the vehicle, her eyes wide, her face white. "Mademoiselle!" said Anthony, shocked. "I have been awaiting you," she said. He was about to speak, but she gestured him not to do so. "The other day my father and myself gained by your good will. You showed yourself a friend, though a stranger. If you saw us again in need of help, would you come forward, once more, to give it?" "I would," said Anthony. "We are in danger," she said. "How great, and how immediate, I do not know, and there is not a soul in the whole world to whom we can appeal but you." She spoke to the coachman and the carriage started. "Thank you," she said to Anthony, gratitude in her frightened eyes. "To-morrow you shall hear from me." With that she was gone; and Anthony, his tall hat in his hand, stood staring after her. VIII It was fairly well into the afternoon; Anthony had shaved, dressed his hair, and attired himself smartly. He sat in the public room of the Half Moon, rather cherishing the hope that Mademoiselle Lafargue might show some early sign of requiring his service. A pursy-looking man in top-boots, and with his pockets stuffed with papers, occupied a bench near to a window, and talked with a gentleman wrapped in a greatcoat and with a rug across his knees. "The watch," said the pursy man, "is all but useless. They cannot prevent wrong-doing, and when it is done they are unable to bring the malefactors to justice." The man in the greatcoat drew the rug more closely about his knees and seemed unhappy. "It is very distressing," said he. "A crime like this, and no one to place it upon. For what are we taxed if it is not for the punishment of offenders?" "No goods were taken," said the pursy man. "No harm was done save to Magruder's life. That alone seems to have been the purpose of the criminal. A stab-wound, says the surgeon; a stab-wound in the neck, and struck not so shrewdly! 'Twas a clumsy hand that did the deed; but," and here the speaker wagged his head, "an apprentice is as good as a journeyman, so long as the task is accomplished." "There are city lights," said the man in the greatcoat; "there are safeguards for life and property; the watch is well paid. But the streets are not safe; prowlers can go to and fro as they will; houses, places of business are entered, blows are struck, lives are taken. Yet the prisons are unoccupied; the gallows are unused."