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.

Her imagination could easily picture the mad search that would be made—­but who could find a trace of her?

The blackness, the fear, the dread, were doing their work!  She was numb!  She began to feel as if she were suspended in space, as if everything had dropped away from her, as if in another instant she would fall—­and fall—­and fall—.

Suddenly she heard a laugh in the hall again—­this time there was no mistake about it, for it was followed by several voices.  Some one approached the door.

A key was inserted and turned in the lock.

She started to her feet, and steadied herself!

The door swung open quickly—­some one entered.  By the dim light in the hall behind, she saw that it was a man—­a gentleman in evening clothes, with a hat on the back of his head, and a coat over his arm.

But while her alert senses took that in, the door closed again—­the man had remained inside.

The thought of making a dash for the door came to her, but it was too late.

She heard the scratching of a match—­a muttered oath at the darkness in a thick voice—­then a sudden flood of light blinded her.