“I was going up to the avenue, mum,” he explained, “but I seen you here.”

Nina’s face paled as she tore it open and read the curt lines: 

“Come to me, here.  Your help needed instantly.”

She sprang from the carriage.  “Tell mother I have gone over to see some Fort friends,—­not to wait,” she called to the coachman, well knowing he would understand that she meant the ladies with whom she had been so recently talking.  Like a frightened deer she sped around the corner, hailed the driver of a cab, lounging with his fellows along the walk, ordered him to drive with all speed to Summit Avenue, and with beating heart decided on her plan.  Her glorious eyes were flashing:  the native courage and fierce determination of her race were working in her woman’s heart.  She well knew that imminent danger threatened him.  She had dared everything for love of his mere presence, his sweet caress.  What would she not dare to save him, if save she could?  He had not been true to her.  She knew, and knew well, that, whether sought or not, Alice Renwick had been winning him from her, that he was wavering, that he had been cold and negligent; but with all her soul and strength she loved him, and believed him grand and brave and fine as he was beautiful.  Now—­now was her opportunity.  He needed her.  His commission, his honor, depended on her.  He had intimated as much the night before,—­had told her of the accusations and suspicions that attached to him,—­but made no mention of the photograph.  He had said that though nothing could drag from him a word that would compromise her, she might be called upon to stand ’twixt him and ruin; and now perhaps the hour had come.  She could free, exonerate, glorify him, and in doing so claim him for her own.  Who, after this, could stand ’twixt her and him?  He loved her, though he had been cold; and she—?  Had he bidden her bow her dusky head to earth and kiss the print of his heel, she would have obeyed could she but feel sure that her reward would be a simple touch of his hand, an assurance that no other woman could find a moment’s place in his love.  Verily, he had been doing desperate wooing in the long winter, for the very depths of her nature were all athrob with love for him.  And now he could no longer plead that poverty withheld his offer of his hand.  She would soon be mistress of her own little fortune, and, at her mother’s death, of an independence.  Go to him she would, and on wings of the wind, and go she did.  The cab released her at the gate to her home, and went back with a double fare that set the driver to thinking.  She sped through the house, and out the rear doors, much to the amaze of cook and others who were in consultation in the kitchen.  She flew down a winding flight of stairs to the level below, and her fairy feet went tripping over the pavement of a plebeian street.  A quick turn, and she was at a little second-rate stable, whose proprietor knew her and started from his chair.