Get his hat and coat out of the
passage, Barstow."

He propped Hine against the table, and holding him upright turned to the
door. He saw "the pretty girl" leaning over the banister and gazing with
horror-stricken eyes into the room. Sylvia drew back on the instant.
With a gesture of his hand, Archie Parminter stopped Barstow on his way
to the door.

Sylvia leaned back against the wall of the staircase, holding her
breath, and tightly pressing a hand upon her heart. Had they seen her?
Would they come out into the passage? What would happen? Would they kill
her? The questions raced through her mind. She could not have moved, she
thought, had Death stood over her. But nothing happened. She could not
now see into the room, and she heard no whisper, no footsteps creeping
stealthily along the passage toward her, no sound at all. Presently she
recovered her breath, and crept up-stairs. Once in her room, with great
care she locked the door, and sank upon her bed, shaking and trembling.
There she lay until the noise of the hall door closing very gently
roused her. She crept along the wall till she was by the side of the
window. Then she raised herself against the wall and peered out. She saw
Barstow and Parminter supporting Hine along the street, each with an arm
through his. A hansom-cab drove up, they lifted Hine into it, got in
themselves, and drove off. As the cab turned, Archie Parminter glanced
up to the windows of the house. But Sylvia was behind the curtains at
the side. He could not have seen her. Sylvia leaned her head against the
panels of the door and concentrated all her powers so that not a
movement in the house might escape her ears. She listened for the sound
of some one else moving in the room below, some one who had been left
behind. She listened for a creak of the stairs, the brushing of a coat
against the stair rail, the sound of some one going stealthily to his
room. She stood at the door, with her face strangely set for a long
while. Her mind was quite made up. If she heard her father moving from
that room, she would just wait until he was asleep, and then she would
go--anywhere. She could not go back to her mother, that she knew. She
had no one to go to; nevertheless, she would go.

But no sound reached her. Her father was not in the room below. He must
have gone to bed and left the others to themselves. The pigeon had been
plucked that night, not a doubt of it, but her father had had no hand
in the pl