“Too late now, anyway,” Mrs. Lawrence declared.  “She’s gone for good, and no mistake.  Walked right out of the house.  I heard her slam the front door.”

“And a good job, too,” Mrs. Fitzgerald armed.  “We don’t want any of her sort here—­not those who’ve got things of value about them.  I bet she didn’t leave America for nothing.”

A little gray-haired lady, who had not as yet spoken, and who very seldom took part in any discussion at all, looked up from her knitting.  She was desperately poor but she had charitable instincts.

“I wonder what made her want to steal,” she remarked quietly.

“A born thief,” Mrs. Fitzgerald declared with conviction,—­“a real bad lot.  One of your sly-looking ones, I call her.”

The little lady sighed.

“When I was better off,” she continued, “I used to help at a soup kitchen in Poplar.  I have never forgotten a certain look we used to see occasionally in the faces of some of the men and women.  I found out what it meant—­it was hunger.  Once or twice lately I have passed the girl who has just gone out, upon the stairs, and she almost frightened me.  She had just the same look in her eyes.  I noticed it yesterday—­it was just before dinner, too —­ but she never came down.”

“She paid so much for her room and extra for meals,” Mrs. Lawrence said thoughtfully.  “She never would have a meal unless she paid for it at the time.  To tell you the truth, I was feeling a bit uneasy about her.  She hasn’t been in the diningroom for two days, and from what they tell me there’s no signs of her having eaten anything in her room.  As for getting anything out, why should she?  It would be cheaper for her here than anywhere, if she’d got any money at all.”

There was an uncomfortable silence.  The little old lady with the knitting looked down the street into the sultry darkness which had swallowed up the girl.

“I wonder whether Mr. Tavernake knows anything about her,” some one suggested.

But Tavernake was not in the room.

CHAPTER II

A TETE-A-TETE SUPPER

Tavernake caught her up in New Oxford Street and fell at once into step with her.  He wasted no time whatever upon preliminaries.

“I should be glad,” he said, “if you would tell me your name.”

Her first glance at him was fierce enough to have terrified a different sort of man.  Upon Tavernake it had absolutely no effect.

“You need not unless you like, of course,” he went on, “but I wish to talk to you for a few moments and I thought that it would be more convenient if I addressed you by name.  I do not remember to have heard it mentioned at Blenheim House, and Mrs. Lawrence, as you know, does not introduce her guests.”

By this time they had walked a score or so of paces together.  The girl, after her first furious glance, had taken absolutely no notice of him except to quicken her pace a little.  Tavernake remained by her side, however, showing not the slightest sense of embarrassment or annoyance.  He seemed perfectly content to wait and he had not in the least the appearance of a man who could be easily shaken off.  From a fit of furious anger she passed suddenly and without warning to a state of half hysterical amusement.