And still she held her hand, wondering. Who could it be? Not Quard: for she had seen him leave New York. Never Marbridge: that were unthinkable! Hattie Morrison, perhaps.... And that meant.... The bell ground on implacably. At length she found courage to adjust the chain-bolt and open the door to the limit permitted by that guard. In the outer hallway a gas-jet burned, turned low, diffusing just enough illumination to show her the figure, somehow indefinitely familiar in spite of its style, of a man in a chauffeur's uniform: a young and wiry man clothed in khaki coat and breeches and leather leggins, and wearing a cap with visor shadowing heavily his narrow, sharp-featured countenance. As the door opened he removed his finger from the bell-push, and drove home recognition with his voice. "Miss Thursby live here? I got a message for her." Joan gasped: "Butch!" "It's me, all right," her brother admitted crisply in his well-remembered tone of irony. "You certainly are one sincere little sleeper. I been ringing here--" "How did you get in?" "Rang up the janitor--if _that_ matters. Lis'n: you betta hustle into your clothes quick 's you can if you wanta get home in time to say good-bye to the old woman." "Mother!" Joan shrilled. "What--what's the matter--?" "Dyin'," Butch told her briefly and without emotion. "She said she wanted to see you. So get a move on. My car's waitin', and I dassent leave it alone. Hustle--y' understand?" "Yes, yes!" Joan promised with a sob. "I'll hurry, Butch--" "See you do, then!" The boy swung about smartly and disappeared down the well of the stairway. Joan closed the door, and leaned against it, panting. Suppose he had wanted to come in!... For the moment, this was her sole coherent thought. Then, rousing, she crept stealthily back to the darkened bedroom, gathered up her clothing with infinite precautions against noise, and returned to the sitting-room to dress in feverish haste.... There was an open taxicab waiting in front of the door. As she came out, Butch bent over and cranked the motor. Straightening up, he waved her curtly into the body of the car. "Jump in and shut the door," he ordered briefly, climbing into the driver's seat. "But--Butch--" "Doncha hear me? Get in and shut that door. We got no time to waste chinnin' here." Abashed and frightened, the girl obeyed. Immediately Butch had the cab in motion, tearing eastward at lawless speed through streets whose long ranks of yawning windows, seen fugitively in the formless dusk of early morning, seemed to look down leering, as if informed with terrible intelligence. She shut out the sight of them with hands that covered her face until the swift rush of cool air steadied and sobered her, so that she grew calmer in the knowledge that, in veritable fact (and this was all that really mattered) "nobody knew"....