But Jessie remembered, and she quickly put them on again, the torn calico gown, the broken shoes, the old sailor hat--then she drew aside the curtain and looked out, starting to find that the gray November day was near its close and the sky overcast with threatening snow clouds. How long it seemed since yesterday! He had been twenty-four hours dead. Dead! Oh, how impossible it seemed for such youth and strength and beauty to be so quickly annihilated. His kiss still burned like fire on her lips and thrilled warmly through her veins. “Oh, I must see him once again!” she sobbed, and pushed up the sash and measured the distance to the ground with frantic eyes. It was only a story and a half, and a neglected awning rope fortunately hung from her own window. With a low cry of joy, Jessie caught it and knotted it to the window shutter. When it grew a little darker she climbed up into the window and swung herself out, tremblingly, on the frail support. Halfway down to the ground the rope broke with her weight, and gave her a fall to the pavement, but the distance was not great, and with a little, stifled moan of pain, she dragged herself up from the ground and hurried off through the darkness, sobbing: “I know where Fifth Avenue is, and I will go there if it kills me. But I hope that proud, beautiful lady will not be there to wither me with her angry eyes!” CHAPTER IX. AN HOUR TO BE REMEMBERED. The Fifth Avenue mansion where Mrs. Dalrymple lived was little less than a palace as she was little less than a princess, if royal beauty, royal wealth, and almost royal state could count. Her parents were dead, she was mistress of herself and many millions, and at barely thirty-three, while looking scarcely twenty-five, had scores of hearts at her feet from which to choose, if that way lay her happiness. Some said that she had been widowed young, others that she was divorced, some that her heart was buried in a grave, others that she was a man hater. No one ever heard her own that either was true. She simply smiled and went her way, heedless of praise or blame. That autumn evening when she swept down the grand staircase into the brilliantly lighted hall, her rich violet velvet robe trailing behind her, her jewels flashing like stars, she heard an altercation at the door. Her pompous servant was saying harshly: “You cannot come in here; no, indeed, there’s no use begging me, I tell you. Go around to the servants’ entrance!” Mrs. Dalrymple stopped short, listening to the low, pleading, girlish voice that half sobbed: “I tell you I’m not a beggar! Oh, do let me in to see Mr. Laurier just once more!” The man was about to laugh rudely just as his mistress came up behind him, exclaiming in her sweet, frosty voice: “What is the trouble here?” The man stepped back in dismay at the question, and a girlish form rushed past him and knelt at the lady’s feet.