"I know what it is." Charles bent over him tenderly. "You are weak from hunger." "Do you think that is it?" Mason asked, resignedly, doggedly. "Yes, and it has to end right here and now. We are friends, aren't we? I'm going down and bring you something this minute. It is not a woman that is offering it, Mason. It is a friend who knows what suffering is. Wait! Lie still. I'll hurry back." From the restaurant where he had breakfasted that morning Charles secured some hot chicken broth with bread and coffee. As he was hurrying back, he met a newsboy selling afternoon papers. The thought darted through his brain that the papers might contain an account of his flight which had been telegraphed from Boston, and he bought a paper and thrust it into his pocket. He met Mrs. Reilly as he was entering the front door. Hurriedly he explained the reason for his bringing the food. "Good gracious!" she cried. "I thought he looked bad. One of my roomers said it was dope, but I didn't believe him. And I was turning him out in that condition! Think of it--just think of it!" "I am to pay the back rent he owes, Mrs. Reilly," Charles said, putting the things down on a step of the chair and taking out his purse. "You? Not on your life!" she threw back, warmly. "Do you think I'll let a stranger come and do more for that poor boy than I've done, when he was going about drumming up trade for me after what I said to him? Not on your life! I'll feed him, too, from this on. I'll bring him his breakfast if he ain't able to come down in the morning." Seeing that she would not receive the money, Charles took up the things and ascended the stairs. He found Mason seated at the window in the cooling breeze from the open space in the rear. His eyes held the eager gleam of a starving man shipwrecked on a raft. He tried to make light of his hunger as Charles hurriedly placed a small table near him and filled a soup-plate with the rich broth, which contained tender fragments of chicken. "Here, tackle this, you chump!" said Charles, and he laughed as he used to laugh in his school-days. "The idea of your letting yourself starve in this great, enlightened, Christian city!" Mason obeyed. A warm look of reviving health was in his face as he drank the soup. The plate was soon empty. Charles filled it again, and poured out the hot coffee. As he did so he felt the folded newspaper in his pocket, and a sudden cool shock of dismay went through him. What might not the paper say? Some one might have seen him take the train in Boston. Some one might have watched him on his arrival in New York. The very house he was in might already be shadowed by instructed officials. Men nowadays were captured easily enough in the vast network of the detective system.