you Miss Zelie!" said Farr, curtly, walking
off toward the entrance of Rose Alley. He did not ask the old man to
go with him. He was drawn in two directions by his emotions and stopped
after he had taken a few steps. This seemed like espionage in a matter
which was none of his concern. It was entirely possible that the
confidential secretary of Colonel Dodd and the nephew of that gentleman
might have common business even in Rose Alley and at that time of
evening.

But the matter of that masquerading ballot-falsifier, just out of state
prison, overcame Farr's scruples about meddling in the affairs of Kate
Kilgour.

He turned the corner into the alley in season to see the two men far
ahead of him; they passed out of the radiance shed by a dim light and he
saw no more of them. He walked the length of the alley and was not able
to locate any of the party. At its lower end the alley was closed in by
houses, and it was plain that the people he sought had not passed out
into another thoroughfare. He marched back, scrutinizing the outside of
buildings, trying to conjecture what business the handsome girl and
the two men could have in that section at that hour, and where they had
entered to prosecute that business.

"I must continue to blame it all on the nice old ladies," he told
himself, smiling at the shamed zest he was finding in this hunt. "But I
hope this knight-errantry will not grow to be a habit with me. I
mustn't forget that I have another job on hand for nine o'clock--also
knight-errantry!"

He paused under the dim light where his men had disappeared and looked
at his cheap watch.

Twenty-five minutes of nine!

Then he heard a woman's protesting voice. She cried "No, _no_, NO!" in
crescendo.

He gazed at the house from which the voice seemed to come. It was near
at hand, a shabby little cottage with a thin slice of yard closed in by
a dilapidated picket fence. He perceived no observers in the alley, and
he stepped into the yard. The front windows were open, for the evening
was warm, but no lights were visible in the house.

He heard the protesting cry again. It was more earnest.

He head the rumble of a man's voice, but could not catch the words.
Whatever was happening was taking place in some rear room.

"No, I say, no! Unlock that door," cried the voice, passionately.

Farr troubled his mind no longer with quixotic considerations about
intrusion. He hoisted himself over the window-sill into the darken