ted by the
train, which towards the small hours seemed to be trying out some new
buck-and-wing steps of its own invention, slept ill, and presently, as
she lay awake, there came to her bedside the Spectre of Doubt, gaunt and
questioning. Had she, after all, wrought so well? Had she been wise in
tampering with this young man's life?

"What about it?" said the Spectre of Doubt.

3

Daylight brought no comforting answer to the question. Breakfast failed
to manufacture an easy mind. Sally got off the train, at the Grand
Central station in a state of remorseful concern. She declined the offer
of Mr. Carmyle to drive her to the boarding-house, and started to walk
there, hoping that the crisp morning air would effect a cure.

She wondered now how she could ever have looked with approval on her
rash act. She wondered what demon of interference and meddling had
possessed her, to make her blunder into people's lives, upsetting them.
She wondered that she was allowed to go around loose. She was nothing
more nor less than a menace to society. Here was an estimable young man,
obviously the sort of young man who would always have to be assisted
through life by his relatives, and she had deliberately egged him on
to wreck his prospects. She blushed hotly as she remembered that mad
wireless she had sent him from the boat.

Miserable Ginger! She pictured him, his little stock of money gone,
wandering foot-sore about London, seeking in vain for work; forcing
himself to call on Uncle Donald; being thrown down the front steps by
haughty footmen; sleeping on the Embankment; gazing into the dark waters
of the Thames with the stare of hopelessness; climbing to the parapet
and...

"Ugh!" said Sally.

She had arrived at the door of the boarding-house, and Mrs. Meecher was
regarding her with welcoming eyes, little knowing that to all practical
intents and purposes she had slain in his prime a red-headed young
man of amiable manners and--when not ill-advised by meddling, muddling
females--of excellent behaviour.

Mrs. Meecher was friendly and garrulous. Variety, the journal which,
next to the dog Toto, was the thing she loved best in the world, had
informed her on the Friday morning that Mr. Foster's play had got over
big in Detroit, and that Miss Doland had made every kind of hit. It was
not often that the old alumni of the boarding-house forced their
way after this fashion into the Hall of Fame, and, according to Mrs.
Meecher