She rang the elevator bell.

“Has anybody called at my apartment while I was out?” she asked.

“Yes’m.  A man came here.”

“And you let him up?”

“I didn’t know you were out.  You see I had just come on.  He said he was to meet some one at your apartment.  And when he pressed the buzzer, the door opened, and I ran the elevator down again.  I thought it was all right, ma’am.”

“And then what?” inquired Constance breathlessly.

“Well, in about five minutes my bell rang.  I ran the elevator up again, and, waiting, was this man with a girl I had never seen before.  You understand—­I thought it was all right—­he told me he was going to meet some one.”

“Yes—­yes.  I understand.  Oh, my God, if I had only thought to leave word not to let her go.  How did she look?”

“Her clothes, you mean, Ma’am?”

“No—­her face, her eyes!”

“Beggin’ your pardon, I thought she was—­well, er,—­acted queer—­ scared—­dazed-like.”

“You didn’t notice which way they went, I suppose!”

“No ma’am, I didn’t.”

Constance turned back again into her empty apartment, heart-sick.  In spite of all she had planned and done, she was defeated—­worse than defeated.  Where was Florence!  What might not happen to her!  She could have sat down and cried.  Instead she passed a feverishly restless night.

All the next day passed, and still not a word.  She felt her own helplessness.  She could not appeal to the police.  That might defeat the very end she sought.  She was single-handed.  For all she knew, she was fighting the almost limitless power of brains and money of Preston.  Inquiry developed the fact that Preston himself was reported to be in Chicago with his fiancee.  Time and again she was on the point of making the journey to let him know that some one at least was watching him.  But, she reflected, if she did that she might miss the one call from Florence for help.

Then she thought bitterly of the false hopes she had raised in the despairing father of Florence Gibbons.  It was maddening.

Several times during the day Constance dropped into the Betsy Ross, without finding any word.

Late that night the buzzer on her door sounded.  It was Mrs. Palmer herself, with a letter at last, written on rough paper in pencil with a trembling hand.

Constance almost literally pounced on it.

“Will you tell the lady who was so kind to me that while she was out seeing you at the tea room, there was a call at her door?  I didn’t like to open it, but when I asked who was there, a man said it was the steam-fitter she had asked to call about the heat.

“I opened the door.  From that moment when I saw his face until I came to myself here I remember nothing.  I would write to her, only I don’t know where she lives.  One of the bell-boys here is kind enough to smuggle this note out for me addressed to the Betsy Boss.