Gilead nodded, and turned away. A slight smile was on his lips. ‘The bait,’ he was thinking, ‘does not appear to have been a very killing one.’ At that moment the young lady moved, pushed at the swing-doors, and disappeared into the open. Gilead, following, started in pursuit, and very quickly overtook her. She went before him down Fleet Street, into the Strand, and, at Wellington Street, turned to cross the bridge. She walked fast, and he had enough to do to keep pace with her. It was still raining, and it struck him as curious that, although she was quite daintily attired, she never seemed to think of opening the umbrella she carried in her hand. The fact gave him a qualm, and in some way prepared him for the scene to follow. About the middle of the bridge he was delayed by a momentary pressure in the foot traffic, and, darting round and beyond the obstruction, suddenly saw his quarry in the grasp of a policeman. The next instant he formed one of the group, sympathetic and protective. “She was going over, Constable?” he whispered. “Is that so?” The man recognized him at once. He was known to half the force. “I see it in her eye, Mr Balm,” he said. “She’d have gone the next moment.” He held the girl by the elbow, and Gilead saw her face for the first time. It was youth stricken into instant age, white, stunned, breathless. She made no effort to speak or escape--indeed she could not. The strung nerves had snapped at a touch, and she was paralyzed. “I’ll make myself responsible for her,” said Gilead. “Quick, we mustn’t let a crowd gather.” The constable, prompt man, bent down to the half blind, half deaf young face. “You’re took bad, Missy,” he said; “you aren’t yourself. Now you just go with this gentleman, who’ll do you more good than all the doctors in the world.” He held her, spoke to her, shouldered away an over-officious bystander or so, and stopped an empty four-wheeler, all with that comprehensiveness of resource which characterizes the London policeman. In another minute Gilead was rolling away, in charge of his poor little capture. He did not address her for some time, not until, cowered into her corner, she suddenly gave a moan, and put her hands before her face. And then he spoke, in the voice that was like his name:-- “You mustn’t be frightened; you mustn’t mistrust me. I had come to answer your advertisement, to offer you help, when you were pointed out to me and I followed you. Now the help is very near--as near as the end of your trouble, I am sure.” She appeared to listen; but no power was yet hers to answer. “I know,” said Gilead, “I know. Some misery; someone’s wickedness--we have many such cases, and I know. I am going to take you where you will find rest, and sympathy, and strong wills to back you. You must just believe me, and not speak a word.”