She stopped.

“And what?” asked Constance.

“Tell the truth—­and then do a cowardly thing.  I would—­”

“You would not!” blazed Constance.

There was no mistaking the meaning.

“Leave it to me.  Trust me.  I will help you.”

She pulled the girl down on the divan beside her.

“Why talk of suicide?” mused Constance.  “You can plead this aphasia I have just seen.  I know lots of newspaper women.  We could carry it through so that even the doctors would help us.  Remember, aphasia will do for a girl nowadays what nothing else can do.”

“Aphasia!” Florence repeated harshly.  “Call it what you like—­ weakness—­anything.  I—­I loved that man—­not the one who followed me—­another.  I believed him.  But he left me—­left me in a place—­ across in Brooklyn.  They said I was a fool, that some other fellow, perhaps better, with more money, would take care of me.  But I left.  I got a place in a factory.  Then some one in the factory became suspicious.  I had saved a little.  It took me to Boston.

“Again some one grew suspicious.  I came back here, here—­the only place to hide.  I got another position as waitress in the Betsy Ross Tea Room.  There I was able to stay until yesterday.  But then a man came in.  He had been there before.  He seemed too interested in me, not in a way that others have been, but in me—­my name.  Some how I suspected.  I put on my hat and coat.  I fled.  I think he followed me.  All night I have walked the streets and ridden in cars to get away from him.  At last—­I appealed to you.”

The girl had sunk back into the soft pillows of the couch beside her new friend and hid her face.  Softly Constance patted and smoothed the wealth of golden hair.

“You—­you poor little girl,” she sympathized.

Then a film came over her own eyes.

“New York took me at a critical time in my own life,” she said more to herself than to the girl.  “She sheltered me, gave me a new start.  What she did for me she will do for any other person who really wishes to make a fresh start in life.  I made few acquaintances, no friends.  Fortunately, the average New Yorker asks only that his neighbor leave him alone.  No hermit could find better and more complete solitude than in the heart of this great city.”

Constance looked pityingly at the girl before her.

“Why can’t you tell them,” she suggested, “that you wanted to be independent, that you went away to make your own living?”

“But—­they—­my father—­is well off.  And they have this detective who follows me.  He will find me some day—­for the reward—­and will tell the truth.”

“The reward?”

“Yes—­a thousand dollars.  Don’t you remember reading—­”

The girl stopped short as if to check herself.

“You—­you are Florence Gibbons!” gasped Constance as with a rush there came over her the recollection of a famous unsolved mystery of several months before.