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She called to the child. No answer.

She felt for the door, found it–it was locked.

She was in perfect darkness.

A terrible wave of sickness passed over her and left her trembling and weak.

All she had ever heard and found it difficult to believe, coursed through her mind.

The folly of it all was worse. Fifteen minutes before all had been well with her–and now–!

Through all her terror one idea was strong within her. She must keep her head, she must be calm, she must be alertly ready for whatever happened.

The whole thing had seemed so simple. The crying child had been so plausible! Yet–to enter a strange dark house, in an unknown part of the city! How absurd it was of her! And that–after noticing–as she had–that, cold as the halls were and uncarpeted, there was neither smell of dirt nor humanity in the air!

While all these thoughts pursued one another through her mind she stood erect just inside the door.

She really dared not move.

Suddenly a fear came to her that she might not be alone. For a moment that fear dominated all other sensations. She held her breath, in a wild attempt to hear she knew not what.

It was deathly still!

She backed to the door, and began cautiously feeling her way along the wall. Inch by inch, she crept round the room, startled almost to fainting at each obstacle she encountered.

It was a large room with an alcove–a bedroom. There was but little furniture, one door only, two windows covered with heavy drapery, the windows bolted down, and evidently shuttered on the outside.

When she returned to the door, one thing was certain, she was alone. The only danger she need apprehend must come through that one door.

Yet she pushed a chair against the wall before she sat down to wait–for what? Ah, that was the horror of it! Was it robbery? There was her engagement ring, a few ornaments like her watch, and very little money! Yet, as she had seen misery, even that might be worth while. But was this a burglar’s method? A ransom? That was too mediaeval for an American city. If neither, then what?

She had but one enemy in the world, her Jack’s best friend, or at least, he was his best friend until the days of her engagement. But he was a gentleman, and these were the days when men did not revenge themselves on women who frankly rejected the attentions they had never encouraged. It was weak, she knew it, to even remember the words he had said to her when she had refused to hear the man she was to marry slandered by his chum–still she wished now that she had told Jack, all the same.

If she could only have a light! There was gas, but no matches. To sit in the dark, waiting, she knew not what, was maddening.

Then a new terror came over her. Suppose she should fall asleep from fatigue and exhaustion, and the effect of the dark?

It seemed days that she sat there.

She knew afterward that it was only five hours and a half, but that five hours and a half were an eternity–three hundred and thirty minutes, each one of which dragged her down, like a weight, into the black abyss of the unknown; three hundred and thirty minutes of listening to the labored beating of her own heart–it was an age, after all!

Only once did she lose control of herself. She imagined she heard voices in the hall–that some one laughed–was there still laughter in the world? In spite of herself, she rushed to the door, and pounded on it. This was so useless that she began to cry hysterically. Yet she knew how foolish that was, and she stumbled back to her chair, sank into it, and calmed herself. She would not do that again.

What was her mother thinking? Poor mama! What would Jack say, when, at eleven o’clock, he ran in from his bachelor’s dinner–his last–which he was giving to a few friends? What would her father say? He had always prophesied some disaster for her excursions into the slums.