esting man she knew was Tod Chase. He was
original and he interested her. His breezy manner and cheerful way of
looking at things was just what her own life lacked. His mere presence,
his droll utterance, and broad grin dispelled the blues and made her
feel happier. She believed, too, that he was a friend. He had not called
since her refusal to go and live with her uncle, but she had no reason
to believe that he disapproved of her action. Perhaps he was afraid to
intrude on her. She had offered to take him down to the slums to show
him just how the poor people lived. Any day he might come to claim the
promise.

But with all her courage Paula was far from happy. Often she wished that
her father had not left her a cent, and that she was back in Paris,
copying the old masters in the Louvre. All she had gone through could
not have failed to affect her nervous system. She was singularly
depressed. Try as she would, she was unable to shake off the idea, which
soon became an obsession, that something serious was about to happen,
that some catastrophe, compared with which all that had until now
occurred were trifles, was hanging over her head. Never so much as now
had she realized her utter loneliness and defencelessness. Mr. Ricaby
and the Parkes were very kind and sympathetic, but at best they were
only acquaintances. She had no real claim upon them. There was
apparently nothing to fret about. Her uncle and Bascom Cooley gave no
sign of life, yet still she worried. She tried to centre all her
attention on her work, but always the silent question arose in her mind:
"What is being plotted in the dark?" The uncertainty of suspense
unnerved her so much that she was soon rendered unfit for work of any
kind.

One evening about two weeks after the ignominious retreat of Messrs.
Marsh and Cooley, she was sitting alone with Mr. Ricaby in Mrs. Parkes'
parlor. She had been busy at the Settlement all day and returned home so
tired that she was glad when, after dinner, the call of her attorney
gave her an excuse for not going to a lecture which she had promised to
attend.

"What do you think?" she asked anxiously. "Will they leave me alone
now?"

The lawyer shook his head ominously:

"You don't know Bascom Cooley. He never admits defeat. Baffled in his
attempt to keep you under close control in the Marsh house, he will
scheme to gain his ends in some other way. While you are free to come
and go as you please you are a hindrance to