am only sorry
that it is so slight a thing that you ask of me. I have thought it
but right to tell my wife what has passed, and I had difficulty in
persuading her not to come with me this evening to also express her
gratitude to you. She will be pleased indeed to call upon your friends
at once, and I am sure she will do so tomorrow. I was going to ask you
to dine with us, and I hope that you will do so. We shall have no one
else, and I hope that you will be able to arrange to meet your friends
at our house a few days later."

The next morning Mark called on Mrs. Cunningham.

"I think you will have a visitor today," he said. "It has happened that
I have been able to do a service to the son of Mr. Cotter, a wealthy
banker. I am going to dine there this evening. He asked me about my
friends in London, and I mentioned that my only lady friends were you
and Millicent. He asked a few questions as to where you were living, and
so on, and said that his wife would have much pleasure in calling and
introducing Millicent into society. As your life is very dull here, and
it is clearly very desirable that Millicent should go into society, I
gladly accepted the offer, and I believe that she will call today."

"That will be very nice indeed, Mark. Millicent is not complaining, but
she must have felt it very dull. I have even felt it so myself after the
cheerful society we had at home."

"I don't know that I shall like it," Millicent said doubtfully.

"Oh, yes, you will, Millicent; and besides, it will be good for you. It
is not natural for a girl of your age to be here without friends, and I
shall be very glad to know that you are going to mix a little with other
people."

Mrs. Cotter called that afternoon, and three days later Mark met Mrs.
Cunningham and Millicent at a dinner party at the banker's, and Mrs.
Cotter introduced them very warmly to several of her friends, with the
result that in a very short time they were frequently invited out, while
they became very intimate with the banker and his wife, and often spent
the day there.

CHAPTER XIV.

Some little time after this Mark was intrusted by his chief with the
work of discovering a man who had committed a very atrocious murder, and
was, it was tolerably certain, hiding in the slums of Westminster. It
was the first business of the kind that had been confided to him, and he
was exceedingly anxious to carry it out successfully. He dressed himself
as a street ha