A few minutes later Mrs. Neville took her departure, promising to call on the morrow; but when the car door was closed upon her she laughed aloud, muttering, as she glanced back to the house she had just left: “If you see either your pretty Maggie or your two hundred dollars after you send her on that errand to-morrow, it will be because my plan proves a failure, which I think is scarcely likely to be the case.” CHAPTER LIV. IN THE TOILS. All day long, while the eyes of her humble friend Jenny and the rest of her shopmates were on her, Iris preserved a calm and almost happy exterior; but when night came, and she lay awake by the sleeping Jenny’s side, then, indeed, the girl’s young heart was like to break, and the God in whom she trusted alone knew what she suffered. It was a close, sultry day in early springtime, and Iris found great difficulty in breathing, but she never once raised the thick brown veil that concealed her face, having a constant horror of meeting Charles Broughton, or some of the sunny-day friends who might recognize in this pale little working girl the happy Iris of other days. By walking slowly she reached the bank at last, but was unable to get her check cashed immediately, as there chanced to be quite a number of people to be served before her. One gentleman, noting the weary attitude in which she stood, awaiting her turn, placed a chair for her behind a large, fluted column near the paying teller’s window, where she might sit comfortably and partly concealed from the throng of people around her. While Iris was seated in this place, two gentlemen, leaning against the column behind which she was ensconced, and totally ignorant of her proximity, were conversing in low, guarded tones, every word uttered being distinctly audible to Iris. She was about to cough, or make some sound that would warn the gentlemen of her presence, when some words spoken by one of them caused her to pause. She had recognized the voice of Gerald Dare; and Dare had mentioned a name the very sound of which sent the blood tingling through her veins like wildfire. “I am greatly surprised at the information you have just imparted to me,” Gerald’s companion said, in answer to something the former had been telling him; and Gerald hastily resumed: “But the information is perfectly correct, I assure you. I was somewhat surprised myself, on first hearing the news, although I don’t know why St. John should not marry old Hilton’s heiress--the black-browed Isabel is eminently more suited to him than that pretty little Iris could possibly have been. Sad affair--that of little Iris, was it not?” “I never heard the truth of the girl’s story, Dare, beyond some vague rumors that she had left Mr. Hilton’s home, and that she was not his own daughter. I never had the pleasure of meeting Miss Iris but once, and then I thought her a charming little lady. What was the trouble, anyhow?”