Meanwhile Teresina, choking down her sobs, climbed the stairs to the room she occupied in that ramshackle tenement. Unlocking the door, she entered and started to cross the floor in search of a box of matches she remembered having left upon the chimney-piece. She had not advanced more than three steps, however, before she was seized by the throat from behind, while at the same time a keen-bladed knife was driven, as far as the handle, between her shoulders, only to be withdrawn and thrust in again and again, until she fell with a little gasp upon the floor. When her assassin had made sure that she was dead, he lit the gas and knelt beside her for a few minutes. Then he rose, placed something in a box upon the table, turned off the gas once more, picked up the box, and went out, relocking the door behind him. CHAPTER VI After leaving Teresina, Godfrey made his way back to his hotel. As he strode along he meditated as to what he should do to help her. That the girl was in serious trouble, he had not the least doubt; but since she would not allow him to assist her in any form, what could he do? He had been through a good deal that day, and by the time he reached his hotel he was quite worn out. The night porter who admitted him noticed his haggard appearance. “You don’t look very well, sir,” he said, sympathetically; “is there anything I can do for you?” “If you could manage to get me a brandy and soda, I should be very much obliged,” Godfrey said, as he dropped into one of the seats in the hall. “I will do so with pleasure, sir,” the man replied, and disappeared at once in search of the refreshment, which he very soon brought back. Godfrey drank it off, and then announced his intention of proceeding at once to bed. “Poor little Teresina!” he said to himself as he wound up his watch; “poor little girl, it seems a shame that she should suffer so!” Little did he guess that at that moment Teresina’s troubles were over, that she would never know sorrow or poverty again. Next morning he returned to Detwich by an early train. Though he had only been absent from it a little more than twenty-four hours, it seemed to him that he had been away for years. “You look tired out, Godfrey,” said his mother, as they stood together in the hall. “I did not have a very good night last night,” he said, “and I had a hard day’s running about yesterday. That is all. You needn’t worry about me, mother; I’m as strong as a horse.” He went on to tell his mother of his meeting with Fensden, and informed her that the latter intended coming to stay with them next day. “That will be very nice,” she said. “You will enjoy having him. I shall put him up in the south wing in order that he may be near you. The wall-papers are more subdued there. I know, of old, how he notices these things.”