"Where are you going?" I asked the girl. "I will take you to your home--or hotel," I added with a slight upward intonation on the last word. "I do not know where I am going," she answered slowly. "I have never been in New York until to-day." "But you have friends here?" I asked. She shook her head. "But are you really carrying eight thousand dollars about with you in New York at night?" I asked in amazement. "Don't you know this city is full of thieves, and that you are in the worst district?" For a moment it occurred to me that she might have been decoyed into Daly's. And yet I knew it was not that sort of place; indeed, Daly's chief desire was to remain as inconspicuous as possible. It was very difficult to get into Daly's. "Do you know the character of the place you came out of?" I asked, trying to find some clue to her actions. "The character?" she repeated, apparently puzzled at first. "Oh, yes. That is Mr. Daly's gaming-house. I came to New York to play at roulette there." She was looking at me so frankly that I was sure she was wholly ignorant of evil. "My father is too ill to play himself," she explained, "so I must find a hotel near Mr. Daly's house, and then I shall play every night until our fortune is made. Tonight I lost nearly two thousand dollars. But I was nervous in that strange place. And the system expressly says that one may lose at first. To-morrow I raise the stakes and we shall begin to win. See?" She pulled a little pad from her bag covered with a maze of figuring. "But where do you come from?" I asked. "Where is your father?" Again I saw that look of terror come into her eyes. She glanced quickly about her, and I was sure she was thinking of escaping from me. I hastened to reassure her. "Forgive me," I said. "It is no business of mine. And now, if you will trust me a little further I will try to find a hotel for you." It would have disarmed the worst man to feel her little hand slipped into his arm in that docile manner of hers. I took her to the Seward, the Grand, the Cornhil, and the Merrimac--each in turn. Vain hope! You know what the New York hotels are. When I asked for a room for her the clerk would eye her furs dubiously, look over his book in pretense, and then inform me that the hotel was full. At the Merrimac I sat down in the lobby and sent her to the clerk's desk alone, but that was equally useless. I realized pretty soon that no reputable hotel in New York City would accommodate her at that hour. We were standing presently in front of the _Herald_ office. Her hand still touched my arm, and I was conscious of an absurd desire to keep it there as long as possible. My curiosity had given place to deep anxiety on her account. What was this child doing in New York alone, what sort of father had let her come, if her story were true? What was she? A European? Too unconventional for that. An Argentine? A runaway from some South American convent?