the place he
had struck burned and smarted. It was quite a different sensation from
what she had felt when she had touched it with her cool wet hand. She
straightened herself with a spring and threw back her head, and her eyes
flashed fiercely in the dark. The accidents of fate closed round her,
and the hands of her destiny had her by the throat, choking her as she
breathed.

There was no more hesitation. With quick steps she began to ascend the
short, steep flights. It was dark, beyond the first turning, but she
went on, touching the damp walls with her hands. Then there was a
glimmer again, and a second lantern marked the first landing and shone
feebly upon a green door with a thin little square of white marble
screwed to it for a door-plate and a name in black. She glanced at it
and went on, for she knew that Griggs lived on the fifth floor. She was
surefooted, like her father, as she went firmly up, panting a little,
for her drenched clothes weighed her down. There was one more light, and
then there were no more. She counted the landings, feeling the doors
with her hands as she went by, dizzy from the constant turning in the
darkness. At last she thought she had got to the end, and groping with
her hands she found a worsted string and pulled it, and a cracked little
bell jangled and beat against the wood inside. She heard a pattering of
feet, and a shrill, nasal child's voice called out the customary
question, inquiring who was there. She asked for Griggs.

"He is not here," answered the child, and she heard the footsteps
running away again, though she called loudly.

Her heart sank. But she groped her way on. The staircase ended, for it
was the top of the house, and she found another door, and felt for a
string like the one she had pulled, but there was none. Something told
her that she was right, and with the sudden, desperate longing to be
inside, with her strong protector, in the light and warmth, she beat
upon the door with the palms of her hands, her face almost touching the
cold painted wood studded with nails, that smelled of wet iron.

Then came the firm, regular footsteps of the strong man, and his clear,
stern voice spoke from within, not in a question, but in a curt refusal
to open.

"Go away," he said, in Italian. "You have mistaken the door."

But she beat with her hands upon the heavy wood.

"Let me in!" she cried in English. "Let me in!"

There was a deep exclamation of surprise, and the oil