Moving her bags was expensive and thinning an Airedale to the finest “point” of safety entailed anxiety. His canine protests against the experiment were what first lifted her eyes to a sign beside the door of a substantial house. A savoury odor of beef stew wafted from the downstairs windows and attracted the young dog so powerfully that, with ears laid back and muscles straining against his leash, he pulled her up the first two steps. What attracted the girl was the invitation of brass letters laid upon an ebony board: RETREAT FOR WAYWARD GIRLS For more than two hours they had been walking slowly. Each day now they walked more slowly. And the slower they walked, the more urgent had grown their present landlady’s “want” of their room. The window signs were scarce in this cheap section of the city, said to be congested beyond all record. And such “To Lets” as they had found were said at the doors, after momentary inspection, to be already “taken.” So now, weariness and the odor of stew on the crisp autumn air decided the dog. The cold sunlight falling upon the topmost, polished word of the sign--RETREAT--decided the girl. The matron proved to be a quite good imitation of a mother. The girls under her charge were mostly repentant--some she had graduated into good cheer. “Waywardness” was an infliction to be frankly discussed; to be vied over, sighed and cried over with consoling _camaraderie_. Even the dog was pitied. Indeed, his demands for ready relief were met far too generously for his gastronomic good. Although the “new girl” did not explain about herself--there was no need of that--she relaxed within the warming atmosphere of the retreat and tried hard to please. Interestedly she listened to tales of the benevolent gentleman who directed the philanthropy. With so many examples of waywardness about her, she came to take a less strained view of her plight. But the night and day stories poured into her ears--stories of the undying devotion of the varied “friends” in the varied inmates’ cases who, through varied circumstances, had been separated from their hearts’ desires by cruel Fate--filled her with a longing for John Cabot that increased with the approach of her ordeal. Despite her unselfish resolves, she wanted him to know. He must have been hurt if he knew of her seeming desertion. Her past fear of the “risks,” as italicized by Rufus Holt, was wiped off the slate of her mind. The risk of death, which involved the greater risk of loss of love, was writ instead--to stay.