"There's a young one that goes up to see 'em frequent, sir," shrilled the woman. "He an' she goes in an' out without a word to us--like we was the dirt under their feet. But that kid knows 'em." The man looked at Carolyn May with more curiosity. "She doesn't seem to belong around here," he said. "No more than them. She's all that ever's come to see 'em, since they lived here, so fur as I know." The man turned his back upon the child, and Carolyn May hurried down the few remaining steps and out of the door of the tenement house. The shrieking, dirty children were playing on other steps. She got away without further delay. She was still sobbing and tears were trickling down Carolyn May's face as she ran through the streets toward home. She pictured to herself all the time the pale lady, senseless and helpless upon the floor of the hot kitchen, with her beautiful hair flowing about her. The very worst that could happen to her friend the little girl believed to have occurred. So when she arrived at home at last she was scarcely able to explain the trouble. As it chanced, it was Papa Cameron's afternoon at home--he had one partial holiday each week--and it was he who met Carolyn and caught her up in his arms when she sank, sobbing and moaning, at the entrance to their apartment. "My little Snuggy!" he cried, "what is the matter?" "Where is Prince?" asked Carolyn's mother. "What has become of the dog, do you suppose, Lewis?" "Prince--Prince--is--is--watching her!" sobbed the child. "Watching _who_?" demanded the man anxiously. Carolyn was able to tell them in broken sentences what had happened--how she had left the pale lady and her baby with Prince on guard. She showed them the key to the apartment. "And the poor woman locked in there all alone!" exclaimed Hannah Cameron, hurrying to put on her street things. "I must go over there at once. Probably she should have a doctor, too. It may be no ordinary faint. Of course her husband will not be at home at this hour." "What does he do?" asked Mr. Cameron, curiously. "Do you know?" His wife glanced at him rather oddly. "I can guess," she said. "And I am pretty sure my guess is right." But that did not explain the matter in the least, as far as Mr. Cameron could see. "Well, you and Carolyn go on," he said, "and I'll bring a doctor with me. If she is as frail and delicate a woman as Snuggy intimates she shouldn't be living in such a place, anyway. I wonder what sort of chap her husband is and what he is thinking of to keep her and her baby in that place." "Oh, Papa!" said Carolyn, with another sob, "they can't help it. Mr. Laird don't earn enough to send them away for the summer, and they have lots of bills to pay. My pale lady told me so." "'Mr. Laird'!" repeated Mrs. Cameron, in a peculiar tone. "I shouldn't wonder. Come, Carolyn May. Can you show me the nearest way to your friend's house, do you think?"