“It’s no use, my boy!” said one of these. “Old Mensenn is immovable. He not only will not introduce us, but he refuses, for the present, to answer any questions. Perhaps he’s wise, for after such an ovation as this, if she showed up, she’d run the risk of being eaten alive. The women are as mad over her as the men.” Randall hurried on, however, and catching sight of the well-known face of old Mensenn, approached him with a certain confidence. The man had known him long, and, as Randall hoped, in a way that had made him trust him. Every effort which he made was perfectly useless, however. It was evident that no exception to his decision was to be made. Randall was turning away half-resentfully when a man, small and unremarkable in appearance, came from a long, dark passage and, seeing him, stopped a second, and then, as if recognizing him, approached rapidly and said: “You do not know me, but you rendered me and mine a service once, which I can never forget. You are the man who punished the brute who offered an insult to the being dearest to me in the world. I saw you from behind my mask, and have often wished that I could thank you properly for what you did. Will you call to see me to-morrow afternoon at four, and let me introduce you to my daughter that she may thank you, too?” And while Randall stood astonished and delighted, the man gave the address of the house opposite his own, and then walked away. Randall, on his way home, felt, in spite of his joy at this stroke of fortune, as puzzled and confused in mind as ever. It was an untold relief to learn that the man with whom the woman he loved had sung in the public streets was her father, but oh, how could he have let her do it? What sort of a father could he be? And yet his somewhat pathetic face had beamed with tenderness during the few seconds in which he had spoken to him. Well, one great burden had been rolled away from his heart by the discovery of this relationship between the street singer and her companion; another had gone with the discovery that that awful sound of discord was not her natural voice; and the one that still remained, the fact that she had been a masked street singer, lay heavy on his heart still, but contrasted with the love he had for this woman, that burden he was more than ready to carry.