.

CHAPTER III

Mrs. Blandford entered the side door boldly. Luckily for her, the
austerities of the Sabbath were manifest even here; the bar-room was
closed, and the usual loungers in the passages were absent. Without
risking the recognition of her voice in an inquiry to the clerk, she
slipped past the office, still muffled in her veil, and quickly mounted
the narrow staircase. For an instant she hesitated before the public
parlor, and glanced dubiously along the half-lit corridor. Chance
befriended her; the door of a bedroom opened at that moment, and Richard
Demorest, with his overcoat and hat on, stepped out in the hall.

With a quick and nervous gesture of her hand she beckoned him to
approach. He came towards her leisurely, with an amused curiosity that
suddenly changed to utter astonishment as she hurriedly lifted her veil,
dropped it, turned, and glided down the staircase into the street again.
He followed rapidly, but did not overtake her until she had reached the
corner, when she slackened her pace an instant for him to join her.

"Lulu," he said eagerly; "is it you?"

"Not a word here," she said, breathlessly. "Follow me at a distance."

She started forward again in the direction of her own house. He followed
her at a sufficient interval to keep her faintly distinguishable figure
in sight until she had crossed three streets, and near the end of the
next block glided up the steps of a house not far from the one where
he remembered to have left Blandford. As he joined her, she had just
succeeded in opening the door with a pass-key, and was awaiting him.
With a gesture of silence she took his hand in her cold fingers, and
leading him softly through the dark hall and passage, quickly entered
the kitchen. Here she lit a candle, turned, and faced him. He could see
that the outside shutters were bolted, and the kitchen evidently closed
for the night.

As she removed the veil from her face he made a movement as if to regain
her hand again, but she drew it away.

"You have forced this upon me," she said hurriedly, "and it may be ruin
to us both. Why have you betrayed me?"

"Betrayed you, Lulu--Good God! what do you mean?"

She looked him full in the eye, and then said slowly, "Do you mean to
say that you have told no one of our meetings?"

"Only one--my old friend Blandford, who lives--Ah, yes! I see it now.
You are neighbors. He has betrayed me. This house is--"

"My father's!" she replied boldl