me the shady side.

"Shall we go in? Are you game?" asked Constance of her companion.

"I haven't gone so far without considering that," replied Mrs. Palmer,
somewhat reproachfully.

Without a word Constance entered the door down the street followed by
her companion.

A negro at the little cubby hole of an office pushed out a register at
them. Constance signed the first names that came into her head, and a
moment later they were on their way up to a big double room on the
third floor, led by another, younger negro.

"Will you send the bell-boy up?" asked Constance as they entered the
room.

"I'm the bell-boy ma'am," was his disconcerting reply.

"I mean the other one," replied Constance, hazarding, "the one who is
here in the day time."

"There ain't no other boy, ma'am. There ain't no--"

"Could you deliver a note for me at a tea room in New York to-morrow?"
interrupted Constance, striking while the iron seemed hot.

The boy turned around abruptly from his busy occupation of doing
something useless that would elicit a tip. He quietly shut the door,
and wheeled about with his hand still on the knob.

"Do you want to know what room she's in?" he asked.

Constance opened her handbag. Mrs. Palmer suppressed a little scream.
She had expected that ivory-handled thing to appear. Instead there was
a treasury note of a size that caused the white part of the boy's eyes
to expand beyond all the laws of optics.

"Yes," she said, pressing it into his hand.

"Forty-two-down the hall, around the turn, on the other side,"
whispered the boy. "And for God's sake, ma'am, don't tell nobody I told
you."

His shuffle down the hall had scarcely ceased before the two women were
stealthily creeping in the opposite direction, looking eagerly at the
numbers.

Constance had stopped abruptly around the turn. Through a transom of
one of the rooms they could hear voices but could see no light.

"Well, go back then," growled a gruff voice. "Your family will never
believe your story, never believe that you came again and stayed at
Lustgarten's against your will. Why," the voice taunted with a harsh
laugh, "if they knew the truth, they would turn you from the door,
instead of offering a reward."

There was a moment of silence. Then a woman's voice, strangely familiar
to Constance, spoke.

"The truth!" she exclaimed bitterly. "He knew it was a case of a girl
who liked a good time, liked pretty clothes, a ride in an automobile,