adam?" I said, drawing near the hole in some
perturbation.

"Get out? Of course I can't," moaned the unknown female bitterly. "They
won't let me. I told them I would be let out. I told them I'd call the
police. But it's no good. Nobody knows, nobody comes. They could keep me
as long as they liked only--"

I was in the very act of breaking the window finally with my stick,
incensed with this very sinister mystery, when Rupert held my arm hard,
held it with a curious, still, and secret rigidity as if he desired to
stop me, but did not desire to be observed to do so. I paused a moment,
and in the act swung slightly round, so that I was facing the supporting
wall of the front door steps. The act froze me into a sudden stillness
like that of Rupert, for a figure almost as motionless as the pillars of
the portico, but unmistakably human, had put his head out from between
the doorposts and was gazing down into the area. One of the lighted
lamps of the street was just behind his head, throwing it into abrupt
darkness. Consequently, nothing whatever could be seen of his face
beyond one fact, that he was unquestionably staring at us. I must say I
thought Rupert's calmness magnificent. He rang the area bell quite idly,
and went on talking to me with the easy end of a conversation which had
never had any beginning. The black glaring figure in the portico did
not stir. I almost thought it was really a statue. In another moment
the grey area was golden with gaslight as the basement door was opened
suddenly and a small and decorous housemaid stood in it.

"Pray excuse me," said Rupert, in a voice which he contrived to make
somehow or other at once affable and underbred, "but we thought perhaps
that you might do something for the Waifs and Strays. We don't expect--"

"Not here," said the small servant, with the incomparable severity of
the menial of the non-philanthropic, and slammed the door in our faces.

"Very sad, very sad--the indifference of these people," said the
philanthropist with gravity, as we went together up the steps. As we did
so the motionless figure in the portico suddenly disappeared.

"Well, what do you make of that?" asked Rupert, slapping his gloves
together when we got into the street.

I do not mind admitting that I was seriously upset. Under such
conditions I had but one thought.

"Don't you think," I said a trifle timidly, "that we had better tell
your brother?"

"Oh, if you like," said Rupert, in a