them. All this, however, was
going to change when she moved.

As she turned on the hail light she saw an envelope on the floor.
Evidently it had been shoved under the door. It was unstamped. She
opened it, and stepped out of the humdrum into the whirligig.

DEAR MISS CONOVER:
If anything should happen to me all the things in my apartment
I give to you without reservation.
STEPHEN GREGORY.

She read the letter a dozen times to make sure that it meant exactly
what it said. He might be ill. After she had cooked her supper she would
run round and inquire. The poor lonely old man!

She went into the kitchen and took inventory. There was nothing but
bacon and eggs and coffee. She had forgotten to order that morning. She
lit the gas range and began to prepare the meal. As she broke an egg
against the rim of the pan the nearby Elevated train rushed by,
drumming tumpitum-tump! tumpitum-tump! She laughed, but it wasn't honest
laughter. She laughed because she was conscious that she was afraid
of something. Impulse drove her to the window. Contact with men--her
unusual experiences as a reporter--had developed her natural
fearlessness to a point where it was aggressive. As she pressed the tip
of her nose against the pane, however, she found herself gazing squarely
into a pair of exceedingly brilliant dark eyes; and all the blood in her
body seemed to rush violently into her throat.

Tableau!

CHAPTER V

Kitty gasped, but she did not cry out. The five days' growth of blondish
stubble, the discoloured eye--for all the orb itself was brilliant--and
the hawky nose combined to send through her the first great thrill of
danger she had ever known.

Slowly she backed away from the window. The man outside immediately
extended his hands with a gesture that a child would have understood.
Supplication. Kitty paused, naturally. But did the man mean it? Might it
not be some trick to lure her into opening the window? And what was he
doing outside there anyhow? Her mind, freed from the initial hypnosis
of the encounter, began to work quickly. If she ran from the kitchen to
call for help he might be gone when she returned, only to come back when
she was again alone.

Once more the man executed that gesture, his palms upward. It was Latin;
she was aware of that, for she was always encountering it in the halls.
Another gesture. She understood this also. The tips of the fingers
bu