Alarm drove away Caruth’s misgivings. “You--you will let me see you again,” he begged. Slowly the woman shook her head. “I fear not,” she answered. “I shall sail for home on the next steamer--this very day if I can find one leaving. This is good-by.” “But--but--where are you going? It is not easy for a woman to find accommodations at this time of the night. See, it is after twelve o’clock. Won’t you stay here? I can easily go to a hotel.” Again the woman shook her head. “I have friends waiting for me,” she averred. “Good-night.” The blackness of despair settled on Caruth. “But--but--I can’t let you go like this. I must see you again. Tell me where your home is. Let me hope to see you there some day. I’ve known you only an hour or two, but I can’t--I can’t let you go out of my life this way, without a word or a sign. I must see--good God! What’s the matter?” On the woman’s face a look of frozen horror had dawned. Her eyes dropped from his to the letter she had unconsciously withdrawn from its envelope; and following them, Caruth saw in her hand a sheet of paper, stiff and white, very different from the soft, sea-stained sheet he had handled a few moments before. It scarcely needed her terrified words to give the explanation. “He has substituted another letter!” she cried. “He was acting all the time! And I did not guess! I did not guess! He has gone with the hope of Russia in his hands!” CHAPTER FOUR Recklessly Caruth plunged down the half-lighted steps. The elevator had stopped running, and, in any event, he had no time to wait for elevators. Down he sped, past tight-shut doors, whose occupants slept calmly despite his noisy rush; over marble steps, through tessellated halls, round slippery corners. Twice he nearly fell, but he saved himself and went on, bursting at last like a meteor on the scandalized watchman, whom the clatter of his coming had roused from a blameless nap. “Now, now, now!” clamored that individual. “What in hell’s bells you think you’re doing, gallopin’ like this? Why, it’s Mr. Caruth!” “Yes, it’s I.” The young man’s breath came in gasps. One does not race down eight flights of steps without showing the effects. “Yes, it’s I! Has my man, Wilkins, gone out in the last five minutes?” “Wilkins? Naw! Say, Mr. Caruth, you’d better go to bed and sleep it off, or it’ll be you for the psychopathic ward the first thing you know.” “Bosh! Wilkins has run away from my rooms with a valuable letter and eighteen hundred dollars in money. Are you sure he hasn’t passed you?” “Eighteen hundred! Gee! ’Course I’m sure. Ain’t I been here right along?” Caruth drew a long breath and glanced up the stairway down which he had just raced. So sure had he been that Wilkins had fled that he had not stopped to search in his own apartments. A suspicion that he had made himself ridiculous began to penetrate to his brain, and he glanced shamefacedly at the watchman.