As I left the room I heard Devlin turn the key in the lock. Rapidly I mounted the stairs, and dashed into a room on the first landing, from which the sound of female voices were issuing. Three women were there; two were strangers to me, but even in that agitating moment I correctly divined that they were Mrs. Dowsett and Letitia; the third, who rushed with convulsive sobs into my open arms, was no other than Lizzie Melladew herself. "O, thank God, you have come!" she sobbed; "thank God! thank God! Where is Mary? Where is Richard? Take me to them! O, take me to them!" Mrs. Dowsett was the first to recover herself. "You will remain here," she said sternly to Lizzie; and then, addressing me, "How dare you break into my apartment in this manner?" "I dare do more than that," I replied, in a voice sterner than her own, and holding the weeping girl close to my heart. "Prepare you to answer for what has been done. I thank God, indeed, that I have arrived in time, perhaps, to prevent another crime. All is discovered." At these words Mrs. Dowsett shrank back, white and trembling. I did not stop to say more. My first duty was to place Lizzie Melladew in safety; but where? The mental question conveyed its own answer. Where, but in her lover's arms? "Come," I said to Lizzie. "You are safe now. I am going to take you to Richard Carton. Trust yourself to me." "I will, I will!" sobbed Lizzie, "Richard is here, then? How thankful I am, how thankful! And Mary, my dear sister, is she here, too?"