noting
its disorderly details, the heaped-up stovepipes, the littered work-bench
with the shears lying across the vise. Once she thought of Ditmar
arriving at the office and wondering what had happened to her.... The
sound of a bell made her jump. Mr. Tiernan had returned.

"She's gone with him," said Janet, not as a question, but as one stating
a fact.

Mr. Tiernan nodded.

"They took the nine-thirty-six for Boston yesterday morning. Eddy Colahan
was at the depot."

Janet rose. "Thank you," she said simply.

"What are you going to do?" he asked.

"I'm going to Boston," she answered. "I'm going to find out where she
is."

"Then it's me that's going with you," he announced.

"Oh no, Mr. Tiernan!" she protested. "I couldn't let you do that."

"And why not?" he demanded. "I've got a little business there myself. I'm
proud to go with you. It's your sister you want, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"Well, what would you be doing by yourself--a young lady? How will you
find your sister?"

"Do you think you can find her?"

"Sure I can find her," he proclaimed, confidently. He had evidently made
up his mind that casual treatment was what the affair demanded. "Haven't
I good friends in Boston?" By friendship he swayed his world: nor was he
completely unknown--though he did not say so--to certain influential
members of his race of the Boston police department. Pulling out a large
nickel watch and observing that they had just time to catch the train, he
locked up his shop, and they set out together for the station. Mr.
Tiernan led the way, for the path was narrow. The dry snow squeaked under
his feet.

After escorting her to a seat on the train, he tactfully retired to the
smoking car, not to rejoin her until they were on the trestle spanning
the Charles River by the North Station. All the way to Boston she had sat
gazing out of the window at the blinding whiteness of the fields,
incapable of rousing herself to the necessity of thought, to a degree of
feeling commensurate with the situation. She did not know what she would
say to Lise if she should find her; and in spite of Mr. Tiernan's
expressed confidence, the chances of success seemed remote. When the
train began to thread the crowded suburbs, the city, spreading out over
its hills, instead of thrilling her, as yesterday, with a sense of
dignity and power, of opportunity and emancipation, seemed a labyrinth
with many warrens where vice and crime and sorrow could hide. In