Lindsey Warwick was not at all abashed by her supercilious air. He seemed to be wildly agitated, his face pale, his firm chin trembling with emotion. Bending close to the girl's ear he whispered: "Come! your father wishes me to take you to your mother." Something about him, his awe-struck tone, his agitation frightened the girl. She gasped inquiringly: "Mamma?" And Lindsey Warwick answered unhesitatingly, though his voice was hoarse and strange: "Yes, poor child, your mother has just dropped dead of heart-disease over yonder. Come," and he held out his arm. If she had uttered a cry the little scene might have attracted attention from the vast crowd surging about, but had he thrust a sword to the very hilt in her heart Precious could not have fallen more silently or swiftly at his feet. She just dropped down unconscious without moan or cry--that was all. No one had observed anything strange, only one or two looked around when he exclaimed, "My sister has fainted!" His ruse had succeeded admirably. Precious lay like a dead girl at his feet, and there was no one to interfere. The villain lifted the slender white form in his arms and pushed through the crowd, trying to gain the door. People made way when they saw his burden and heard him mutter his formula, "My sister has fainted." But no one displayed any special interest. Half a score of women had fainted that night. So Lindsey Warwick gained the outer air with his burden, and soon finding a cab took her away. It was a daring game that he had played, but he had won. The project had flashed into his mind when he saw her alone and unguarded in the heedless crowd, and in the desperation of a mad and hopeless love he had carried it out. He knew that the chances were terribly against him, but he resolved to run the risk in hope of the prize. The cab took him and his captive to the very suburbs of South Washington--to an old tumble-down red brick house of two stories that stood alone in a large neglected lot. There were but a few more houses in the square, and those strictly of the shanty order. Cabby held out his hand, remarking grumpily: "Five dollars, you know, is legal fare for Inauguration night." "I'll make it ten for good luck, and you can go on a big spree to-morrow," laughed Lindsey Warwick, handing him a bill. Cabby thanked the kind gentleman vociferously, but he did not wait till the next day, but went on his orgies at once, and wound up early next morning in the police court, where he was sent to jail for ten days in default of payment of his fine. He never saw the papers, never knew of the sensation that had followed the simple fact of his driving a young lady and gentleman home from the Inauguration Ball. He did not dream that he had been concerned in an abduction, or that Senator Winans would have made him rich for life if he had given to him the clew he possessed to his lost daughter.