iving in the
building for five years, and of the twenty other families they knew the
names of only two, having learned them by accident rather than
intention. About the people next door Jane now discovered that she
really knew nothing at all. There was a man with a gray beard who never
took off his hat in the elevator, and there was the handsome young chap
whom she had just seen entering. But what their names were, or their
business, or how long they had lived there, or whether they were father
and son, what servants they kept, or whether either or both of them was
married--these were questions she could have answered as readily as if
they had been living in Dallas, Texas, or Seattle, Washington, as in the
next apartment. Quickly she found that she really knew nothing at all
about them except--she could not recall that any one had told her or how
she had got the impression--she was almost certain they were some sort
of foreigners.

Just when it was that her troubled thoughts were succeeded by even more
troubled dreams she was not aware, but it was noon the next day when she
was awakened by the maid bringing in her breakfast tray.

"Terrible, Miss Jane, wasn't it," said the servant, "about that suicide
last night, almost under our noses, you might say."

"Suicide!" cried the girl, at once wide-awake and interested "What
suicide?"

"A man was found dead in the side street right by our building with a
revolver in his hand."

"What sort of a looking man was he?"

"I didn't see him," said the maid, almost regretfully. "He was taken
away before I was up. Cook tells me it was the milkman found him and
notified the police."

"Who was he?"

"Nobody round here knows a thing about him. He shot himself through the
heart and us sleeping here an' not knowing anything at all about it."

"But didn't any one know who he was?"

"Never a soul. The superintendents from all the buildings round took a
look at the body, but none of them knew him. It wasn't anybody that
lived around here. There's a piece in the afternoon papers about it."

"Get me a paper at once," directed the girl.

Eagerly she read the paragraph the maid pointed out. It really told very
little. The body of a plainly dressed man had been found on the
sidewalk. There was a revolver in his hand with one cartridge
discharged, and the bullet had penetrated his heart. He had been a short
stalky man and had worn a brown soft hat. There was nothing about his
clothin