out the
faint starlight. The night was sultry, and door and casement stood
wide, making pits of darkness. Few lights were visible, but a
continuous hum of voices issued from the human hives, and now and
then a transient red glow at an upper window showed that some one was
smoking a pipe. This was Mitchell's Alley.

The shadows closed behind the two men as they moved forward, and
neither was aware of the figure which had been discreetly following
them for the last ten minutes. If Richard had suddenly wheeled and
gone back a dozen paces, he would have come face to face with the
commercial traveler.

Mr. Peters paused in front of one of the tenement houses, and
motioned with his thumb over his shoulder for Richard to follow him
through a yawning doorway. The hall was as dark as a cave, and full
of stale, moldy odors. Peters shuffled cautiously along the bare
boards until he kicked his toe against the first step of the
staircase.

"Keep close to the wall, Mr. Shackford, and feel your way up.
They've used the banisters for kindling, and the landlord says he
shan't put in any more. I went over here the other night," added Mr.
Peters reminiscentially.

After fumbling several seconds for the latch, Mr. Peters pushed
open a door, and ushered Richard into a large, gloomy rear room. A
kerosene lamp was burning dimly on the mantel-shelf, over which hung
a coarsely-colored lithograph of the Virgin in a pine frame. Under
the picture stood a small black crucifix. There was little
furniture,--a cooking-stove, two or three stools, a broken table, and
a chest of drawers. On an iron bedstead in the corner lay Torrini,
muffled to the chin in a blanket, despite the hot midsummer night.
His right arm, as if it were wholly disconnected with his body,
rested in a splint on the outside of the covering. As the visitors
entered, a tall dusky woman with blurred eyes rose from a low bench
at the foot of the bed.

"Is he awake?" asked Peters.

The woman, comprehending the glance which accompanied the words,
though not the words themselves, nodded yes.

"Here is Mr. Shackford come to see you, Torrini," Peters said.

The man slowly unclosed his eyes; they were unnaturally brilliant
and dilated, and seemed to absorb the rest of his features.

"I didn't want him."

"Let by-gones be by-gones, Torrini," said Richard, approaching the
bedside. "I am sorry about this."

"You are very good; I don't understand. I ask nothing of Slocum;
but the