Wholly disheartened, Blake ran back to Charlton’s office. He found it locked. No one answered to his knock. Raising his foot he kicked open the door with a single effort. The office was deserted. No one there! He ran to the Jersey City ferry-boat that carries passengers for the Philadelphia cars; it had left the wharf some twenty minutes before. Baffled in all directions, he took his way to the police-station to find Iverson; but that officer was on duty, nobody knew where. After waiting at the station till nearly midnight, Blake at last, worn out with discouragement and fatigue, went home. What had become of Peek all this time? Anticipating that he and his wife might at any moment find it prudent to leave for Canada at half an hour’s notice, Peek had always kept his affairs in a state to enable him to do this conveniently. He had hired his rooms, furniture, and piano-forte by the week, paying for them in advance. Two small trunks were sufficient to contain all his movable property; and these might be packed in five minutes. Flora, his wife, who like Peek was of unmixed blood, had been lady’s maid in a family in Vicksburg. Here she had become an expert in washing and doing up muslins and other fine articles of female attire. But the lady she served died, and Flora became the property of Mr. Penfield, a planter, who, looking on her with the eyes that a cattle-breeder might turn on a Durham cow, ordered her to marry one Bully Bill, a lusty African with a neck like the cylinder of a steam-engine. Flora objected, and learning that her objections would not be respected, she ran away, and after various fortunes settled at Montreal. Here she married Peek, who taught her to read and write. She had been bred a pious Catholic, and Peek, finding that they agreed in the essentials of a devout and believing heart, never undertook to disturb her faith. They moved to New York, and Peek with his wages as waiter, and Flora with the money she got for doing up muslins, earned jointly an income which placed them far above want in the region of absolute comfort and partial refinement. Few more happy and loyal couples could have been found even in freestone palaces on the Fifth Avenue. “Well, Flora, how long will it take you to get ready?” said Peek, entering the neat little kitchen, where she was at work at her ironing-board, while little Sterling sat amusing himself on the floor in building a house with small wooden bricks. Flora, at once comprehending the intent of the question, replied, “I sha’n’t want more ’n half an hour.” “Well, a boat leaves for Albany at five,” said Peek, taking the Sun newspaper, and cutting out an advertisement. “We’d better quit here, and go on board just as soon as we can.” “Le ’m me see,” said Flora, meditatively. “The grocer at the corner will send round these muslins, ’specially if we pay him for it. My customers owe me twenty dollars,—how shall we collek that?” “You can write to them from Montreal.”