About a quarter of a mile from the houseboat Tania was dumped into the rear end of an automobile and covered with a heavy steamer blanket. Then the automobile started off through the night, going faster and faster, it seemed to her, with each hour of darkness that remained. At times the little prisoner slept. When she awakened she cried softly to herself, wondering who had stolen away with her and what was now to become of her. But Tania was only a child of the streets and she had been reared in a harder school than other happier children, so she made no effort to cry out or escape. She knew there was no one near to hear her, and the motor car was moving so swiftly that she could not possibly escape from it. Tania and her unknown companion must have ridden all night. Evidently the driver of the car had not cared about the roads. He had pushed through heavy sand and ploughed over deep holes regardless of his machine. Speed was the only thing he thought of. By and by the automobile stopped, after a particularly bad piece of traveling. The driver got down, lifted Tania, still wrapped in her blanket, in his arms and carried her inside a house. The child first saw the light in an old room, up several flights of steps, which was drearier and more miserable than anything she had ever beheld in her life in the tenements. It was big and mouldy, and dark with cobwebs swinging like dusty curtains over the windows that had not been washed for years. The windows looked out over a swamp that was thick with old trees. But Tania saw none of these things when the blanket was first lifted from her head. She gave a gasp of fright and horror. For the first time she now realized that her captor was her childhood's enemy and evil genius, Philip Holt. "Oh!" she exclaimed, with a long-drawn sigh that was almost a sob, "it is _you_! Why have you brought me here? What have I done?" Then a look of unearthly wisdom came into Tania's solemn, black eyes. She continued to stare at the young man so silently and gravely that Philip Holt's blonde face twitched with nervousness. "Didn't you recognize me before?" he asked fiercely. "You were quite likely to shriek out in the night and spoil everything, so I had to carry you off with me, little nuisance that you are! You can just make up your mind, young woman, that you will stay right here in this room until I can take you to that nice institution for bad children that I have been telling you about for such a long time. You'll never see your houseboat friends again." Tania made no answer, and Philip Holt left her sitting on the floor of the gloomy room wide-eyed and silent.