ired of my nearly insensible
companion.

"I think so in a dream," she murmured, trying to recall her poor
wandering wits back from some region into which they had strayed.

"Him lalee!" cried the Chinaman, overjoyed at the prospect of getting
his money. "Pletty speak, I knowee him. Lalee want clo?"

"Not to-night. The lady is sick; see, she can hardly stand." And
overjoyed at this seeming evidence that the police had failed to get
wind of my interest in this place, I slipped a coin into the Chinaman's
hand, and drew Miss Oliver away towards the carriage I now saw drawing
up before the shop.

Lena's eyes when she came up to help me were a sight to see. They
seemed to ask who this girl was and what I was going to do with her. I
answered the look by a very brief and evidently wholly unexpected
explanation.

"This is your cousin who ran away," I remarked. "Don't you recognize
her?"

Lena gave me up then and there; but she accepted my explanation, and
even lied in her desire to carry out my whim.

"Yes, ma'am," said she, "and glad I am to see her again." And with a
deft push here and a gentle pull there, she succeeded in getting the
sick woman into the carriage.

The crowd, which had considerably increased by this time, was beginning
to flock about us with shouts of no little derision. Escaping it as best
I could, I took my seat by the poor girl's side, and bade Lena give the
order for home. When we left the curb-stone behind, I felt that the last
page in my adventures as an amateur detective had closed.

But I counted without my cost. Miss Oliver, who was in an advanced stage
of fever, lay like a dead weight on my shoulder during the drive down
the avenue, but when we entered the Park and drew near my house, she
began to show such signs of violent agitation that it was with
difficulty that the united efforts of Lena and myself could prevent her
from throwing herself out of the carriage door which she had somehow
managed to open.

As the carriage stopped she grew worse, and though she made no further
efforts to leave it, I found her present impulses even harder to contend
with than the former. For now she would not be pushed out or dragged
out, but crouched back moaning and struggling, her eyes fixed on the
stoop, which is not unlike that of the adjoining house; till with a
sudden realization that the cause of her terror lay in her fear of
re-entering the scene of her late terrifying experiences, I bade the
coa