.

The rendezvous, she had explained to him, was at a news stand. "There!"
she said, "that is where he will be. There's such a crowd, I can't see
him yet."

They neared the news stand, and as "Miss White" was a tall girl whose
head could be seen above the hats of average women, he expected a man to
start eagerly forward. But no man separated himself from the crowd. She
was beginning to look anxious: there was no flush on her cheeks now.

"Where can he be?" she said. "Something must have happened."

"Taxi broken down, perhaps," Roger tried consolation.

"Oh, if only it's nothing worse! I must just wait. But you, Mr. Sands, I
oughtn't to ask...."

"You needn't," Roger cut her short. "I'm not going to desert you."

"I might have known you wouldn't. He can't be long!"

"What about the envelope? Will you have it now?" Roger asked. She had
begged him to keep it until they were out of the train.

"Not yet. I daren't. You're sure it hasn't been stolen from you? Do
please make certain!"

He put his hand inside his coat, and felt the envelope, which was safe,
of course. "It's there, as large as life."

"Thank heaven!" she breathed.

Minutes passed: fifteen minutes; twenty; thirty. The girl was white as
ashes, and dark shadows lay under her eyes. "All hope is over!" she
said, as Sands glanced at his watch, when they had stood for
three-quarters of an hour. "Some terrible thing has prevented him from
meeting me. I don't know what's going to become of me now!"

II

THE NET

"You made no plan what to do if your friend didn't turn up?" Roger
enquired. "Have you any other friends in Chicago?"

"Not one."

"Have you ever lived here, or stayed here?"

"No."

If he had now been capable of suspecting her, all his first suspicions
of Miss Beverley White would have marshalled themselves in his brain.
Nothing had happened during the whole journey to justify her fantastic
story of mysterious danger. As for the wonderful envelope, who could
tell that it didn't contain blank paper? But Sands had got beyond this
stage. If he were a fool, he asked to be nothing better.

"Is that friend you talk of more than a friend?"

"No, only a person I trusted for reasons I can't tell you."

"I see. And you don't know what will become of you since he's failed
you, and you're turned adrift in a strange town?"

"I don't know at all. I feel stunned--as if it didn't matter."

"It does matter to a girl like you, left alone wit