he carriage drove away. An inner door opened, but the outer
one (as the friends could easily distinguish by the sound of the voices)
remained closed until some one within asked:

"How many?"

"Seven!" answered the man's voice. Then the outer door opened, all went
in, the doors closed and were locked, the footsteps in the hall died
away, and the friends heard no more.

Very gingerly, as if some depredation on personal property had lately
been committed, the two volunteer midnight guardians of the public weal
climbed again over the area railings, after all had been still for a
moment. Not a word passed between them. Harding stepped softly up the
stone steps to the door and noted the number on it, then down again, as
if he was treading on eggs. Leslie counted the number of houses from the
corner, with steps not more sonorous, and looked around to see whether
they could possibly not have been watched by a policeman, when getting
into and out of the area, because they did _not_ intend to steal. All
these things accomplished, and apparently nothing more to be done, they
went quietly down 5-- Street to Lexington Avenue and sought their
carriage.

CHAPTER V.

THE MYSTERY OF THE RED WOMAN--ANOTHER OF TOM LESLIE'S LONG STORIES--AN
INCIDENT OF PARIS IN 1860--THE VISION OFMTHE WHITE MIST--TWO MEN WITH
ONE WONDER AND ONE PURPOSE.

"And who was the red woman?"

It has been indicated in a former chapter that both Tom Leslie and
Walter Lane Harding intended, at one period of the night, to go to bed
as soon as possible. The event was that neither found that luxury until
the milkman was bawling under the windows. Harding had contrived to
raise a large amount of curiosity, especially about the "red woman" and
her possible connection with the events of the evening, and Leslie tired
and satisfied him, collectively and at intervals, with another long
story before they separated. Only in his own words can that story be so
conveyed as to be intelligible.

"I had returned from Vienna to Paris," he said, "late in 1860. No matter
what I was doing in Paris; and as we are upon a serious subject, don't
let me hear a word about 'grisettes' or the 'back room of a baker's
shop.' I lodged in the little Rue Marie Stuart, not far from the Rue
Montorgeuil, and only two or three minutes' walk from the Louvre, for
the long picture galleries of which I had an unfortunate weakness. I had
a tradesman with a pretty wife for my landlord, and a c