“Yes,” the woman said, doubtfully, “Ada’s home.  Yes, you can take her around, if you want to.”

She gave him the address, and he sprang down to the floor, and gathered the child up in his arms and stepped out on the stage.  The prima donna had the centre of it to herself at that moment, and all the rest of the company were waiting to go on; but when they saw the little girl in Van Bibber’s arms they made a rush at her, and the girls leaned over and kissed her with a great show of rapture and with many gasps of delight.

“Don’t,” said Van Bibber, he could not tell just why.  “Don’t.”

“Why not?” asked one of the girls, looking up at him sharply.

“She was asleep; you’ve wakened her,” he said, gently.

But he knew that was not the reason.  He stepped into the cab at the stage entrance, and put the child carefully down in one corner.  Then he looked back over his shoulder to see that there was no one near enough to hear him, and said to the driver, “To the Berkeley Flats, on Fifth Avenue.”  He picked the child up gently in his arms as the carriage started, and sat looking out thoughtfully and anxiously as they flashed past the lighted shop-windows on Broadway.  He was far from certain of this errand, and nervous with doubt, but he reassured himself that he was acting on impulse, and that his impulses were so often good.  The hall-boy at the Berkeley said, yes, Mr. Caruthers was in, and Van Bibber gave a quick sigh of relief.  He took this as an omen that his impulse was a good one.  The young English servant who opened the hall door to Mr. Caruthers’s apartment suppressed his surprise with an effort, and watched Van Bibber with alarm as he laid the child on the divan in the hall, and pulled a covert coat from the rack to throw over her.

“Just say Mr. Van Bibber would like to see him,” he said, “and you need not speak of the little girl having come with me.”

She was still sleeping, and Van Bibber turned down the light in the hall, and stood looking down at her gravely while the servant went to speak to his master.

“Will you come this way, please, sir?” he said.

“You had better stay out here,” said Van Bibber, “and come and tell me if she wakes.”

Mr. Caruthers was standing by the mantel over the empty fireplace, wrapped in a long, loose dressing-gown which he was tying around him as Van Bibber entered.  He was partly undressed, and had been just on the point of getting into bed.  Mr. Caruthers was a tall, handsome man, with dark reddish hair, turning below the temples into gray; his moustache was quite white, and his eyes and face showed the signs of either dissipation or of great trouble, or of both.  But even in the formless dressing-gown he had the look and the confident bearing of a gentleman, or, at least, of the man of the world.  The room was very rich-looking, and was filled with the medley of a man’s choice of good paintings and fine china, and papered with