“You drop this at that number before four o’clock and you’ll get a quarter.”

Then he passed on.

That afternoon Keith walked up toward the Park.  All day he had been trying to find Phrony, and laying plans for her relief when she should be found.  The avenue was thronged with gay equipages and richly dressed women, yet among all his friends in New York there was but one woman to whom he could apply in such a case—­Alice Lancaster.  Old Mrs. Wentworth would have been another, but he could not go to her now, since his breach with Norman.  He knew that there were hundreds of good, kind women; they were all about him, but he did not know them.  He had chosen his friends in another set.  The fact that he knew no others to whom he could apply struck a sort of chill to his heart.  He felt lonely and depressed.  He determined to go to Dr. Templeton.  There, at least, he was sure of sympathy.

He turned to go back down-town, and at a little distance caught sight of Lois Huntington.  Suddenly a light appeared to break in on his gloom.  Here was a woman to whom he could confide his trouble with the certainty of sympathy.  As they walked along he told her of Phrony; of her elopement; of her being deserted; and of his chance meeting with her and her disappearance again.  He did not mention Wickersham, for he felt that until he had the proof of his marriage he had no right to do so.

“Why, I remember that old, man, Mr. Rawson,” said Lois.  “It was where my father stayed for a while?” Her voice was full of tenderness.

“Yes.  It is his granddaughter.”

“I remember her kindness to me.  We must find her.  I will help you.”  Her face was sweet with tender sympathy, her eyes luminous with firm resolve.

Keith gazed at her with a warm feeling surging about his heart.  Suddenly the color deepened in her cheeks; her expression changed; a sudden flame seemed to dart into her eyes.

“I wish I knew that man!”

“What would you do?” demanded Keith, smiling at her fierceness.

“I’d make him suffer all his life.”  She looked the incarnation of vengeance.

“Such a man would be hard to make suffer,” hazarded Keith.

“Not if I could find him.”

Keith soon left her to carry out his determination, and Lois went to see Mrs. Lancaster, and told her the story she had heard.  It found sympathetic ears, and the next day Lois and Mrs. Lancaster were hard at work quietly trying to find the unfortunate woman.  They went to Dr. Templeton; but, unfortunately, the old man was ill in bed.

The next afternoon, Keith caught sight of Lois walking up the street with some one; and when he got nearer her it was Wickersham.  They were so absorbed that Keith passed without either of them seeing him.  He walked on with more than wonder in his heart.  The meeting, however, had been wholly accidental on Lois’s part.

Wickersham of late had frequently fallen in with Lois when she was out walking.  And this afternoon he had hardly joined her when she began to speak of the subject that had been uppermost in her mind all day.  She did not mention any names, but told the story just as she had heard it.