"You? Oh! Miss Dounay!" Rollo exclaimed, with another of his looks of dog-like gratefulness. "Could you be as good as that? Why, say!" and the young man’s enthusiasm actually began to kindle. "You’d undo the damage of last night and fix me with her for life. Positively for life; because," and he hesitated while an expression half ludicrous and half painful crossed his face; "because you are ten times as big a social asset now that—that—" he could not bring himself to finish the sentence. But Miss Dounay relieved him of his embarrassment by appearing not to notice and broke in with a practical question: "What time does the launch leave the pier?" "At four. It is now one-thirty." For a moment Miss Dounay’s brow was threaded with lines of thought, as if she were making calculations and tying the loose ends of some project together in her mind. "Yes," she said, her face clearing and a look of impish happiness coming into her eyes, "I can go. It will be a delightful relief. I have been bored beyond measure by my own company to-day. Come here at three-thirty and François will take us to the pier." *CHAPTER XXVII* *THE FIRST ALARM* Doctor Hampstead was more successful than he had dared to hope in his quest for the woman of the underworld to whom the Red Lizard, from his position in the county jail, acknowledged a tardy obligation. By five o’clock the sufferer was located, her condition inquired into, and the services of a nurse from the Social Settlement near by arranged for, with instructions that the minister be notified of any serious change in the patient’s condition. His breast warmed comfortably with the sense of duty done, the clergyman made his way toward the water front, congratulating himself that he would get the six o’clock boat and be at home in time for dinner; but as he walked through the ferry building, his eye was caught by a headline in one of the evening papers. "MINISTER TO BE ARRESTED" it proclaimed in tall characters of glaring black; and he reflected cynically at the eagerness with which the headline makers seize upon that word "minister" or any of its synonyms. It made the black letters blacker when they spelled minister, priest, or clergyman.