n thrust against the window, and immediately withdrawn. Then the
light against the curtain dimmed suddenly. Leslie "put that and that
together" with the celerity of a lawyer and the confidence of a man of
the world. The people in that house were going away. Where? That was
something to be looked into.

"You know where the livery stable round the corner is, on Houston?" he
asked hurriedly of Harding.

"Yes," was the reply.

"I am too lame to run fast," said Leslie, speaking very rapidly. "We
must follow those people, if they go to perdition. Go to the stable,
quick--do. There is always at least one carriage standing ready, and
have it here as soon as money can bring it. I will watch meanwhile.
Hurry! hurry!"

Probably Harding, who was rather precise in his ordinary movements, had
not gone so fast in ten years. He was around the corner before the last
words had fairly left Leslie's mouth--going as if an enraged woman and
three lively policemen had been close after him. Leslie stepped across
the street again, took a glance at the number on the lamps of the hack
as he passed, and then ensconced himself in a deserted doorway very
near, to watch what followed. Every moment that Harding was gone seemed
an hour. Would they come out and get away, after all, before the coming
of the other vehicle? What kept him so long? (He had been gone about
half a minute!) Had there been, for once, no carriage in waiting at the
livery? or had Harding concluded to go to sleep on the road? And what
the deuce did it all mean--the half-dozen persons, and one a woman
almost completely stripped, whom he had seen in that moment's glance
into that upper chamber? And the red woman!--aye, the _red woman_!--that
bothered Tom Leslie the worst, and as he had himself confessed,
frightened him.

At this juncture the door of the house opened, and a man and two women
came out. The man, from his stature and general appearance, and
especially from his hat, struck Tom as strangely like the tall Virginian
whom they had seen two hours before on Broadway. One of the women might
be the girl, Kate; and the third--Leslie indulged in another bit of a
shudder as he thought that possibly the third might be the red woman.
They were all muffled up, however, and Leslie dared not quit his shelter
to observe them more nearly. The driver kept his seat on the box. The
man opened the door of the carriage, all stepped in, and the carriage
whirled away out into the Bowery and