Patricia dropped into a chair by the railing completely baffled. This villainous creature expected her! How could he expect her? It was only Friday and the appointment was not until the Wednesday of the following week. She looked at her surroundings, trying to find a flaw in their prosperous garb of respectability. That such rascality could exist under the guise of decent business! And the benevolent person who had carried her name might very properly serve upon the vestry of St. ----'s church! Truly there were depths of iniquity in this vile community of business people that her little social plummet could never seek to sound. The little red-headed man with the ferret eyes had vanished from her mind. In his place she saw a type even more alarming--the sleek, well-groomed man with dissipated eyes that she and Mort had often seen dining at popular restaurants. Her mission would not be as easy to accomplish as it had seemed. Her speech to the ferret-eyed man which she had so carefully rehearsed had gone completely from her mind. What she should say to this other man, whom she both loathed and feared, her vagrant wits refused to invent. So in spite of a brave poise of the head she sat in a kind of syncope of dismay, and awaited--she knew not what. The benevolent vestryman returned smiling. "Mr. Doe has just come in, Mrs. Crabb. If you'll kindly come this way." He opened the door and stood aside with an old-world courtliness that all but disarmed her. He followed her into the inner corridor and opened another door, smiling the while, and Patricia, trembling from head to foot, yet resolute, went in, while the elderly person carefully closed the door behind her. A tall figure in an overcoat and soft hat was bending over the fireplace upon the opposite side of the room adjusting a log. "Mr. Doe?" came in a small, muffled voice from behind Patricia's veil. The man at the fireplace still poked at the logs and made no move to take off his hat. "The brute--the utter brute," thought Patricia--and then aloud, "Mr. Doe, I believe." "Yes, madam," said a voice at last. "I'm John Doe--what can I do for you?" "I came about the letters--the letters, you know, you wrote me about. I am prepared to--to redeem them." "H--m," growled the overcoat. "It's Crabb, isn't it? Mrs. Crabb? I'm always getting the Cobb and Crabb letters mixed--six of one and half a dozen of the other----" "I beg pardon," faltered Patty. "Cases very similar. Bad man--good woman. Trusting husband--hey? Well," he muttered brutally, "did you bring the money?" "It is here," said Patricia, trembling. "Now the letters--and let me go." The man moved slowly toward a desk against the wall with his back still turned, took out a package, rose and, turning, handed it to Patricia. Had her gaze not been fixed so eagerly upon the handwriting on the package she could not have failed to note the smiling gray eyes above the upturned coat collar.