She tore it open, while Handsome stood by in silence. On the valet's face there was a triumphant expression, the gratified smile of one rogue who enjoys the discomfiture of another. Helen suddenly gave a cry. "It's as I thought!" she exclaimed. "Dorothy is worse. The doctor thinks it is scarlet fever. I must go to her at once." "Go where?" demanded Handsome in consternation. "To Philadelphia." "To Philadelphia to-night?" he cried in dismay. "Yes--to-night," she said firmly. He protested vigorously. "Nonsense--you can't go to-night. It will do no good. Wait till the morning. There are no trains." Quickly, the valet drew from his pocket a time-table. With a side glance at his master, he said: "There is a train at 1.15. If Madame is quick, she will make it. The car is already waiting downstairs." Helen seized her fur coat, which the obliging valet had also brought up from the hall. "Yes--yes. Throw a few things in my bag. You needn't come, Ken. I'll telephone you directly I get to Philadelphia. Good-bye!" The next instant she was gone and the gambler, with a muttered curse, went to the sideboard and poured out a glass of whiskey, with which to drown his disappointment. CHAPTER XVI For a person so fastidious and particular, so fond of the luxurious and the elegant, Signor Keralio had certainly selected a queer neighborhood for his abode. Miles distant from the fashionable centers, far away up in the Bronx, he occupied the entire top floor of a dingy, broken down tenement. There were no other people in the house, it being in such bad repair that no one cared to live in it, and as Keralio paid as much as all the previous tenants combined and made no requests for improvements, the landlord was only too glad to leave him undisturbed. It was situated at the extreme end of a blind alley and, there being no egress from the street save at one end, there was consequently little or no traffic and, for the great part of the day and night, the silence was as deep and unbroken as in the open country.