He goes to the window and peers anxiously into the street. Sometimes he opens the outer door, and thrusts his head half out to gaze along the thoroughfare cityward. And then he goes across the room, and opens the door of a big dingy closet: looks within, closes the door quietly, and tiptoes back to the window. There is nothing remarkable in that closet. It is dark and dirty. A few shabby garments are hanging on the wall, and a pallet occupies the floor, looking as if it had been carelessly flung there and not yet prepared for its occupant. Papa seems to note this. Stooping down, he smoothens out the ragged blanket and straightens the dirty mattress, cocking his head on one side to note the improvement thus made. Then he goes back to the window, and again looks out. With every passing moment he grows more and more disquieted. * * * * * In the inner room, Leslie Warburton sits alone. Her arms are crossed upon the rough table beside her; her head is bowed upon her arms; her attitude betokens weariness and dejection. By and by she lifts her face, and it is very pale, very sad, very weary. But above all, it is very calm. Since the day when Stanhope's message brought her new hope, she has played her part bravely. Weak in body, harassed in mind, filled with constantly-increasing loathing for the people who are her only companions, utterly unable to guess at the meaning of Stanhope's message--she has battled with illness, and fought off despair, fully realizing that in him was her last hope, her only chance for succor; and fully resolved to cling to this last hope, and to aid her helper in the only way she could--by doing his bidding. "Seem to submit," he said. She had submitted. "Let them play their game to the very last." She had made no resistance. And now the end had come. She had obeyed in all things. And to-day the Francoises were jubilant. To-day Leslie Warburton, by her own consent, was to marry Franz Francoise. It was the last day, the last hour; and Leslie's strength and courage are sorely tried. "Trust all to me," he had said. "When the right time comes, I will be at hand." Leslie arose, and paced slowly up and down her narrow room, feeling her heart almost stop its beating. Had she not trusted to him? trusted blindly; and now--had not the right time come? Was it not the only time? And where was Stanhope? "If he should fail me!" she moaned, "if he should fail me after all!" And her heart leaps suddenly; its tumultuous throbbings nearly suffocate her. She sits down again and her breath comes hard and fast. "If he should fail me," she says again, "then--that would be the end." For she has made a fearful resolve. She would play her part, as it was the only way. _She_ would not fail in the task he had assigned her, and if, at the last, _he_ failed, then--before she became the wife of Franz Francoise, she would die! And Daisy--what, then, would become of her?