That evening of her dismissal from Brown's, and her meeting with Rex Carshaw, Winifred opened the door of the dun house in One Hundred and Twelfth Street the most downhearted girl in New York. Suddenly, mystery had gathered round her. Something threatened, she knew not what. When the door slammed behind her her heart sank--she was alone not only in the house, but in the world. This thought possessed her utterly when the excitement caused by Carshaw and Fowle, and their speedy arrest, had passed. That her aunt, the humdrum Rachel Craik, should have any sort of connection with the murder of Ronald Tower, of which Winifred had chanced first to hear on Riverside Drive that morning, seemed the wildest nonsense. Then Winifred was overwhelmed afresh, and breathed to herself, "I must be dreaming!" And yet--the house was empty! Her aunt was not there--her aunt was held as a criminal! It was not a dream, but only like one, a waking nightmare far more terrifying. Most of the rooms in the house had nothing but dust in them. Rachel Craik had preferred to live as solitary in teeming Manhattan as a castaway on a rock in the midst of the sea. Winifred's mind was accustomed now to the thought of that solitude shared by two. This night, when there were no longer two, but only one, the question arose strongly in her mind--why had there never been more than two? Certainly her aunt was not rich, and might well have let some of the rooms. Yet, even the suggestion of such a thing had made Rachel Craik angry. This, for the first time, struck Winifred as odd. Everything was puzzling, and all sorts of doubts peeped up in her, like ghosts questioning her with their eyes in the dark. When the storm of tears had spent its force she had just enough interest in her usual self to lay the table and make ready a meal, but not enough interest to eat it. She sat by a window of her bedroom, her hat still on her head, looking down. The street lamps were lit. It grew darker and darker. Down there below feet passed and repassed in multitudes, like drops of the eternal cataract of life. Winifred's eyes rested often on the spot where Rex Carshaw had spoken to her and had knocked down Fowle, her tormentor. In hours of trouble, when the mind is stunned, it will often go off into musings on trivial things. So this young girl, sitting at the window of the dark and empty house, let her thoughts wander to her rescuer. He was well built, and poised like an athlete. He had a quick step, a quick way of talking, was used to command; his brow was square, and could threaten; he had the deepest blue eyes, and glossy brown hair; he was a tower of strength to protect a girl; and his wife, if he had one, must have a feeling of safety. Thoughts, or half-thoughts, like these passed through her mind. She had never before met any young man of Carshaw's type.