It never occurred to Iris to attempt an escape from Mrs. Neville’s boudoir, until such time as Broughton saw fit to release her. At ten o’clock that night Broughton reëntered the room. “Well, have you concluded to accept my offer?” he asked sternly, and the sound of his voice had the effect of rousing the girl as nothing else could have done. “I shall never accept your offer. Let me go, sir; I had rather be thrown into prison for a theft of which I am innocent than buy my freedom at such a price.” “It will be a noble revenge, my dear, to doom the child of my betrayer to the same fate I suffered at her hands. Go, now, it is after ten o’clock, and Madam Ward will be terribly alarmed, you know.” He moved aside for Iris to pass out as he concluded, and the girl went out into the street alone, knowing it would be useless to appeal to him again or to demand the return of madam’s money. “Oh, what shall I do! I dare not face Madam Ward, nor can I go to Jenny; it would kill me to see a look of distrust in the eyes of the girl who has loved and trusted me always, and who is now my only friend. Father in heaven, look down on Thy most wretched child to-night, and direct her what to do; guide her to some haven of refuge, or she will die in the streets.” She finally determined to go home to her mother. Her hand was on the bell knob of the door of her home when the most cruel memory that had yet dawned upon her made her pause in the act of ringing. Chester St. John was surely in those lighted parlors--an honored guest, and the betrothed husband of Isabel, while she, whom he once loved, was an outcast and homeless, alone in the darkness of the night and the storm. This bitter memory was as the last straw that broke the camel’s back, and when Peter opened the door, her lips could frame no other word than that piteous cry for “mother” ere the tortured brain once more gave way. She did not faint, or entirely lose consciousness, but a deadly sickness robbed her limbs of their strength, and Peter was obliged to lift her into a little room across the hallway, ere he went to acquaint Mr. Hilton with the fact of her presence. Iris would have made her own way to her mother’s apartments when he had departed on this mission, but it seemed that her limbs were palsied, and refused to obey her will, or even to bear her slight weight when she made an attempt to stand on her feet. “Was it death that was coming to her?” A happy light sprang into her weary eyes as this sweet hope dawned upon her, and she murmured in a tone loud enough to reach the ears of Mr. Hilton, who had just entered the room: “Mother, you will let me stay with you till it is over; you will not turn your child out into the streets to die?” “Good heavens, girl! Why do you talk of dying? You are raving; what has happened to you, and why are you here?” The last words, harshly and coldly spoken, showed the girl that she had little mercy to expect at the hands of her mother’s husband.