There is a door near by, a hallway beyond. Someone stands just beyond this door--a woman, wearing a white apron and a lace cap, a jaunty bit of feathery material on top of her gray hair. He has had one or two glimpses of her before, and knows she has been employed in the rear room assisting the ladies to remove their wraps, a sort of _femme de chambre_. Attracted by the words that escaped her lips, Aleck looks more closely at her face than he has done before. It is changed indeed, but he suddenly remembers that he talked with this woman not many hours before. Again he looks--her eyes meet his gaze, and she shrinks back. He follows her, and just before she can enter the ladies’ dressing room, calls: “I wish to see you, Adela.” At the sound of that name she turns and clasps her hands. Upon her sad face comes a look so full of entreaty that the young Canadian is touched. “Do not mention that name again under this roof, I beg. I admit I am the wretched woman you talked with, but do not betray me--I pray this by the memory of the mother you love,” she says feebly. CHAPTER XVIII. BY SPECIAL DELIVERY. The words, the tone in which they are spoken, and what he knows of the woman cause Aleck to sympathize with her. At the same time he is surprised to find her in Samson Cereal’s mansion. A suspicion flashes into his mind that perhaps she is here for no good purpose, but he immediately dismisses it with scorn. “What brings you here--I feel as though I had a right to ask?” he says. “A double reason--my desire to see my boy, for he is mine even though the cruel law took him from me--and the longing that for one night I might be under the same roof that shelters them both. Once in the long ago we made a happy family. O God! that Satan’s hand came between! Years of atonement have followed--will suffering never wash out a sin like that? But I forget myself--I vowed I would control my feelings if I came. You will not betray one so wretched?” “Not for worlds. But you must tell me how you managed to gain access here.” “I know his housekeeper. She was a nurse in the hospital when I was head nurse, and she owed me some gratitude. When I asked this favor she readily granted it, though of course utterly ignorant of my motive.” He has not forgotten what she declared was her hope--that Heaven would give her a chance to prove her love, her repentance, before the grim Destroyer, who had fastened upon her, came to claim his victim. Thus he is assured that she will do no harm, though he can hardly believe she is wise in enduring the melancholy pleasure of gazing upon forbidden fruit. “Have you met him?” he asks, curious to know whether Samson Cereal could suspect. “Oh, yes! but I am utterly unlike the Adela he married in the long ago. Besides, these glasses which I carry give me a different look.” She puts them on, and Aleck admits he would not have known her. “He failed to recognize you, then?”