o in larger cities, that they turned
the day topsy turvy, that the street seethed with surging life through
late afternoon and night and the dark hours of the morning, that the
saloons stood brightly lighted then, that their doors were filled with
men coming and going, that games ran high, voices rose high, while life,
as these men knew it, ran higher still.

At last she came to Henry Pollard's house. It stood back from the street
in a little yard notable for the extreme air of untidiness the rank
weeds gave it and for its atmosphere of semi-desertion among its few
stunted, twisted, unpruned pear trees. The fence about it had once been
green, but that was long, long ago. The doors were closed, the shades
close drawn over the windows, the house still and gloom-infested even in
the sunlight.

Stronger and higher within her welled her misgivings; for the first
time she admitted to herself that she was sorry that she had tried to do
this thing which Mr. Templeton had told her was madness. She hesitated,
sitting her horse at the gate, with half a mind to whirl and ride back
whence she had come. And then, with an inward rebuke to her own
timidity, she dismounted and hurried along the weed bordered walk, and
knocked at the door.

There came quick answer, a man's voice, heavy and curt, crying:

"Who is it?"

"Are you Mr. Pollard?" she called back, her voice a little eager, more
than a little anxious.

"Yes." There was a note as of excitement in the voice. "Is that you,
Winifred?"

"Yes, uncle. I ... I ..."

She faltered, hesitated, and broke off pitifully. She had heard the
eagerness in Pollard's voice, guessed at what it was that he was
thinking, knew that now she would have to tell him that she had failed
in the errand which he had entrusted to her, that she had let a man rob
her of the five thousand dollars of which he stood so urgently in need.
Oh, why had she attempted to do it, why had she not listened to Mr.
Templeton? And, now, what would her uncle say?

"Just a minute, Winifred. I'm a little under the weather and am in bed.
Now." She heard no footsteps; yet there was the noise of a wooden bar
being drawn away from the door. "Come in. You'll pardon me, being in
bed, my dear. And fasten the door after you, will you, please?"

She stepped across the threshold and into the darkened house, her heart
beating quickly. As she slipped the bar back into its place she saw that
there was fastened to the end of it a co