ighted it and ran her finger down the long line of
V's. Finding at last the name she wanted, she called the number, then
closed her eyes and prayed fervently, feverishly, and half-aloud the
words came jerkily:

"O God, please let him be home, and let him get down here quick before
Miss Frances goes out. She and Mother McNeil are going somewhere and
won't be back until eleven, and that would be too late for him to
come, and--Hello!" The receiver was jammed closer to her ear. "Is
that Mr. Van Landing's house? Is he home? He--he--isn't home!" The
words came in a little wail. "Oh, he must be home! Are you
sure--_sure_? Where can I get him? Where is he? You don't know--hasn't
been at the office all day and hasn't telephoned? He's looking--I mean
I guess he's, trying to find somebody. Who is this talking? It's--it's
a friend of his, and tell him the minute he comes in to call up Pelham
4293 and ask for Miss Frances Barbour, who wants to talk to him. And
listen. Tell him if she's out to come to 14 Custer Street, to Mother
McNeil's, and wait until she gets home. Write it down. Got it? Yes,
that's it. Welcome. Good-by."

The receiver was hung upon its hook, and for a moment Carmencita
stared at the wall; then her face sobered. The strain and tension of
the day gave way, and the high hopes of the night before went out as
at the snuffing of a candle. Presently she nodded into space.

"I stamped my foot at Miss Frances. _Stamped my foot_! And I got mad,
and was impertinent, and talked like a gutter girl to a sure-enough
lady. Talked like--"

Her teeth came down on her lips to stop their sudden quivering, and
the picture on the wall grew blurred and indistinct.

"There isn't any use in praying." Two big tears rolled down her cheeks
and fell upon her hands. "I might as well give up."

CHAPTER X

For a half-moment after Carmencita left the room Frances Barbour stood
in the middle of the floor and stared at the door, still open, then
went over and closed it. Coming back to the table at which she had
been writing, she sat down and took up her pen and made large circles
on the sheet of paper before her. Slowly the color in her face cooled
and left it white.

Carmencita was by nature cyclonic. Her buoyancy and bubbling spirits,
her enthusiasms and intensities, were well understood, but how could
she possibly know Stephen Van Landing? All day he had been strangely
on her mind, always he was in her heart, but thought of hi