“To let me know if you were anxious about her.”

“Yes, and I am.  She’s in danger I only hope——­”

“What?”

“I don’t like to tell you all I know.  It doesn’t seem right.  But I’m so afraid for Eve.”

“I can only imagine one kind of danger——­”

“Yes—­of course, it’s that—­you know what I mean.  But there’s more than you could fancy.”

“Tell me, then, what has alarmed you?”

“When did you see her last?” Patty inquired.

“More than a week ago.  Two or three days before I came here.”

“Had you noticed anything?”

“Nothing unusual.”

“No more did I, till last Monday night.  Then I saw that something was wrong.  Hush!”

She gripped his arm, and they listened.  But no sound could be heard.

“And since then,” Patty pursued, with tremulous eagerness, “she’s been very queer.  I know she doesn’t sleep at night, and she’s getting ill, and she’s had letters from—­someone she oughtn’t to have anything to do with.”

“Having told so much, you had better tell me all,” said Hilliard impatiently.  There was a cold sweat on his forehead, and his heart beat painfully.

“No.  I can’t.  I can only give you a warning.”

“But what’s the use of that?  What can I do?  How can I interfere?”

“I don’t know,” replied the girl, with a help. less sigh.  “She’s in danger, that’s all I call tell you.”

“Patty, don’t be a fool!  Out with it!  Who is the man?  Is it some one you know?”

“I don’t exactly know him I’ve seen him.”

“Is he—­a sort of gentleman?”

“Oh, yes, he’s a gentleman.  And you’d never think to look at him that he could do anything that wasn’t right.”

“Very well.  What reason have you for supposing that he’s doing wrong?”

Patty kept silence.  A band of rowdy fellows just then came shouting along the street, and one of them crashed up against the shop door, making Patty jump and scream.  Oaths and foul language followed; and then the uproar passed away.

“Look here,” said Hilliard.  “You’ll drive me out of my senses.  Eve is in love with this man, is she?”

“I’m afraid so.  She was.”

“Before she went away, you mean.  And, of course, her going away had something to do with it?”

“Yes, it had.”

Hilliard laid his hands on the girl’s shoulders.

“You’ve got to tell me the plain truth, and be quick about it.  I suppose you haven’t any idea of the torments I’m suffering.  I shall begin to think you’re making a fool of me, and that there’s nothing but—­though that’s bad enough for me.”

“Very well, I’ll tell you.  She went away because it came out that the man was married.”

“Oh, that’s it?” He spoke from a dry throat.  “She told you herself?”

“Yes, not long after she came back.  She said, of course, she could have no more to do with him.  She used to meet him pretty often——­”