Alys had not asked to see the patient, knowing that it would be useless, but Mrs. Dissosway had walked out to the cart with her, and pointing to a window on the first floor of the wing devoted to paying patients, remarked: "That's where she is, poor dear." Alys had wondered if she should fall low enough before this accursed case were finished to describe the position of that room to Broderick and insinuate what he might find there if he chose to hide in the little balcony and enter the room when the night nurse had gone out for the midnight supper. He was quite capable of it. But not if she could win Rush from the case, nor unless, Mrs. Balfame discharged, he were arrested and committed for the crime. She wished now that he had been arrested instead of Mrs. Balfame, for then she could have saved him from both punishment and the other woman without this awful sense of sliding slowly down-hill to choke in a poisonous slime. She might have been obliged to exercise a certain amount of sophistry even then, but she could have stood it. She was driving slowly down Atlantic Avenue when she heard her name called in accents of mystery and excitement. Her modest rig was passing the imposing mansion of Elisha Battle, bank president, and like all the newer homes of Elsinore the grounds were unconfined and the shallow lawn ended at the pavement. From one of the drawing-room windows Lottie Gifning slanted, and as she met Miss Crumley's eye, she beckoned peremptorily. The desire for solitude was still strong upon Alys, but as she had no excuse to advance, she wound the lines round the whip and went slowly up the brick walk. Mrs. Gifning opened the front door and swept her into the drawing-room, where six or seven other women with tense excited faces sat on the expensive furniture. Mrs. Battle, herself upholstered in shining black-and-white satin, and further clad in invisible armour, occupied a stately and upright chair. This throne had been made to order; consequently her small feet in their high-heeled pumps touched the floor. The large room, upon which much money had been spent, was not tasteless; it merely had no individuality whatever. Like many another in Elsinore, it set Miss Crumley's teeth on edge, but compensated her to-day as ever by inspiring her with a sense of remote superiority. "Dear Alys--so glad to see you!" Mrs. Battle did not rise. She was fond of Alys, but thought her of no consequence whatever. "Lottie saw you and called you in as you have always been such a friend of poor dear Enid's, and you know those horrid reporters, and we want to impress upon you the necessity of putting them off the track. We are talking the whole dreadful business over and trying to decide what to do." "Do?" Alys, more interested, disposed her limber uncorseted young figure into a low chair and for a moment diverted envious attention from the momentous subject in hand. "What can we do? Has bail been accepted?" "No, nor likely to be. Isn't it too awful?"