He knew that there could scarcely be a more deserted, isolated spot at this hour of the day than the parlor of the old hotel; and it was as he hoped. The girl had not left it. He descried the slender black figure at once. She was clinging hopelessly with both hands to one of the sodden hangings and sobbing into its heavy folds. He went up to her. "Pardon me. I've come back. Please don't do that." She lifted her swollen eyes in surprise for a moment and then hid them. "What right have you!" she murmured. "None, but I couldn't do anything else, of course. You can see that. Come over here and sit down, please. Somebody might come in." The girl controlled her sobs; but kept her face hidden. "I don't want to talk to you," she gasped. "I know you don't. It makes it rather awkward. Is there any one else in Boston--any one I could go and bring to you?" She rubbed her soft little curls into the aged hangings in a hopeless negative. "Say!" said Dunham, in acute protest, "would you mind taking your head out of that curtain? Why, it might give you typhoid fever." "I've just had it," replied the girl chokingly. "That's why I'm so weak and--and--Oh, if I could just telegraph to Nat!" "If you'll come out of the curtain I'll wire Nat," responded Dunham eagerly,--"that is, if it's the best thing," he added doubtfully. "You can't wire him. He's one-nighting. I don't know where to catch him, and he couldn't come anyway." John continued to regard her as she left her hold on the curtain and pressed a wet handkerchief to her eyes. "Come over here and sit down one minute, please. I won't stay long." She followed reluctantly to the chair he placed. "You shouldn't stay at all," she returned. "I don't wish to trouble a perfect stranger with my woes, and except for Uncle Calvin you have no reason to be here, and--and I haven't any uncle any more." It was pitiful to see her effort to control the pretty, grieving lips. Her soul was smarting with the shock of her discovery, and the mortification of this stranger's knowledge of it. She wished to send him out of her sight at once; but her voice failed. "Now, I'm neither Aunt Martha nor Uncle Calvin," said John, "and I refuse to be treated as if I were. If you haven't any friends in Boston I'm sure you can make one of me for five minutes. The situation is awkward enough, and you might feel for me a bit, eh?" "No, not if you have come to try to persuade me to do anything. Nat--Mr. Forsyth, says he is sure I could get a chance on the stage, and--and he says it would make everything easier if I married him; but my friends at home urged me so much, and said the stage was a dog's life, and persuaded me that my own people were the ones to help me now. My own people!" the speaker pressed the handkerchief to her unsteady lips again, and her eyes swam afresh.