And she drew out her pocket-book while speaking.  At this moment there came two distinct raps on the door.  It had been locked after Mrs. Dinneford’s entrance.  Mrs. Bray started and changed countenance, turning her face quickly from observation.  But she was self-possessed in an instant.  Rising, she said in a whisper,

“Go silently into the next room, and remain perfectly still.  I believe that’s the woman now.  I’ll manage her as best I can.”

Almost as quick as thought, Mrs. Dinneford vanished through a door that led into an adjoining room, and closing it noiselessly, turned a key that stood in the lock, then sat down, trembling with nervous alarm.  The room in which she found herself was small, and overlooked the street; it was scantily furnished as a bed-room.  In one corner, partly hid by a curtain that hung from a hoop fastened to the wall, was an old wooden chest, such as are used by sailors.  Under the bed, and pushed as far back as possible, was another of the same kind.  The air of the room was close, and she noticed the stale smell of a cigar.

A murmur of voices from the room she had left so hastily soon reached her ears; but though she listened intently, standing close to the door, she was not able to distinguish a word.  Once or twice she was sure that she heard the sound of a man’s voice.  It was nearly a quarter of an hour by her watch—­it seemed two hours—­before Mrs. Bray’s visitor or visitors retired; then there came a light rap on the door.  She opened it, and stood face to face again with the dark-eyed little woman.

“You kept me here a long time,” said Mrs. Dinneford, with ill-concealed impatience.

“No longer than I could help,” replied Mrs. Bray.  “Affairs of this kind are not settled in a minute.”

“Then it was that miserable woman?”

“Yes.”

“Well, what did you make out of her?”

“Not much; she’s too greedy.  The taste of blood has sharpened her appetite.”

“What does she want?”

“She wants two hundred dollars paid into her hand to-day, and says that if the money isn’t here by sundown, you’ll have a visit from her in less than an hour afterward.”

“Will that be the end of it?”

A sinister smile curved Mrs. Bray’s lips slightly.

“More than I can say,” she answered.

“Two hundred dollars?”

“Yes.  She put the amount higher, but I told her she’d better not go for too big a slice or she might get nothing—­that there was such a thing as setting the police after her.  She laughed at this in such a wicked, sneering way that I felt my flesh creep, and said she knew the police, and some of their masters, too, and wasn’t afraid of them.  She’s a dreadful woman;” and Mrs. Bray shivered in a very natural manner.

“If I thought this would be the last of it!” said Mrs. Dinneford as she moved about the room in a disturbed way, and with an anxious look on her face.