him to make love to her, he had beaten her. To-night before they went to the cabaret he had told her that unless she would let him love her he would throw the daggers at her heart. In their act she was tied up and he threw daggers all round her. She had been frightened, and when he went to dress she had run away; but the streets were full of people in masks, and she had lost herself. Sylvia looked at this child with her fair hair, who but for the agony and fear in her blue eyes would have been like one of those rapturous angels in old Flemish pictures. Here she sat, as ten years ago Sylvia had sat in the cab-shelter talking to Fred Organ. Her story and Concetta's met at this point in man's vileness. "My poor little thing, you must come and live with me," cried Sylvia, clasping Concetta in her arms. "I too am all alone, and I should love to feel that somebody was dependent on me. You shall come with me to England. You're just what I've been looking for. Now I'm going to put you to bed, for you're worn out." "But he'll come to find me," Concetta gasped, in sudden affright. "He was so clever. On the program you can read. ZOZO: _el mejor prestigitador del mundo_. He knows everything." "We must introduce him to Mrs. Gainsborough. She likes encyclopedias with pockets." "Please?" "I was talking to myself. My dear, you'll be perfectly safe here with me from the greatest magician in the world." In the end she was able to calm Concetta's fears; in sleep, when those frightened eyes were closed, she seemed younger than ever, and Sylvia brooded over her by candle-light as if she were indeed her child. Mrs. Gainsborough, on being told next morning Concetta's story and Sylvia's resolve to adopt her, gave her blessing to the plan. "Mulberry Cottage'll be nice for her to play about in. She'll be able to dig in the garden. We'll buy a bucket and spade. Fancy, what wicked people there are in this world. But I blame her stepmother more than I do this Shoushou." Mrs. Gainsborough persisted in treating Concetta as if she were about nine years old and was continually thinking of toys that might amuse her. When at last she was brought to realize that she was fifteen, she was greatly disappointed on behalf of Mr. Linthicum, to whom she had presented Concetta as an infant prodigy. "He commented so much on the languages she could speak, and he told her of a quick way to practise elemental American, which I always thought was the same as English, but apparently it's not. It's a much older language, really, and came over with Christopher Columbus in the _Mayflower_."