Neither spoke as he alighted, and she believed that he was leaving her in displeasure and abhorrence; but he had only stepped behind the cab for a moment to speak to the driver. In a moment he was back, standing by the step with one hand on the apron and staring in very earnestly and soberly at the shadowed sweetness of her pallid face, that gleamed in the gloom there like some pale, shy, sad flower. Could there be evil combined with such sheer loveliness, with features that in every line bodied forth the purity of the spirit that abode within? In the soul of him he could not believe that a thief's nature fed canker-like at the heart of a woman so divinely, naively dear and desirable. And ... he would not. "Won't you let me go?" "Just a minute. I ... I should like to.... If I find that you have done nothing so very dreadful." he laughed uneasily, "do you wish to know?" "You know I do." She could not help saying that, letting him see that far into her heart. "You spoke of my calling, I believe. That means to-morrow afternoon, at the earliest. May I not call you up on the telephone?" "The number is in the book," she said in a tremulous voice. "And your name in the card-case?" "Yes." "And if I should call in half an hour--?" "O, I shall not sleep until I know!... Good night!" "Good night!... Drive on, cabby." He stood, smiling queerly, until the hansom, climbing the Park Avenue hill, vanished over its shoulder. Then swung about and with an eager step retraced his way to his rooms, very confident that God was in His Heaven and all well with the world. III The cab stopped. The girl rose and descended to the walk. The driver touched his hat and reined the horse away. "Goodnight, ma'am," he bade her cheerfully. And she told him "Good night" in her turn. For a moment she seemed a bit hesitant and fearful, left thus alone. The house in front of which she stood, like its neighbors, reared a high façade to the tender, star-lit sky, its windows, with drawn shades and no lights, wearing a singular look of blind patience. It had a high stoop and a sunken area. There was a dull glow in one of the basement windows. It was very late,--or extremely early. The moon was down, though its place was in some way filled by the golden disk of the clock in the Grand Central Station's tower. The air was impregnated with the sweet and fragrant breath of the new-born day. In the tunnel beneath the street a trolley-car rumbled and whined and clanked lonesomely. A stray cat wandered out of a cross-street with the air of a seasoned debauchee; stopped, scratched itself with inimitable abandon, and suddenly, mysteriously alarmed at nothing, turned itself into a streak of shadow that fled across the street and vanished. And, as if affected by its terror, the grey girl slipped silently into the area and tapped at the lighted window.