elevator shaft from some place a long way above.

“The elevator is there. The door is open!” she said to herself in surprise. “And there is no one in it.”

Just then, as she strained her ears to listen, she caught again that heavy, even tread of the watchman.

Our nerves are strange masters. A great general is thrown into panic at sight of a cat; a woman of national fame goes into convulsions at sight of rippling water on the sea. As for Lucile, at that moment nothing could have so overthrown her whole mental balance as that steady tramp-tramp of the watchman.

This time it drove her to the most curious action. As a wild animal, driven, winded, cornered, will sometimes dash into the very trap that has been set for him, so this girl, leaping forward, entered the elevator cage.

Had there been more time, it may have been that her scattered wits returning would have told her that here, where the dim light set out her whole form in profile, was the most dangerous spot of all.

Before she had time to think of this the elevator gave a sudden lurch and started upward.

Nothing could have been more startling. Lucile had never seen an elevator ascend without an operator at the levers and she naturally believed it could not be done; yet here she was in the cage, going up.

It was as if some phantom hand were in control. Darkness and silence rendered it more spectral. The ever increasing speed shot terror to her very heart. Sudden as had been the start, so sudden was the stop.

Thrown to the floor and all but knocked unconscious, she slowly struggled to her feet. What did it mean? What was to be the end of this terrible adventure?

As she looked before her she saw that the car had stopped about three feet above some floor. The doors to that floor were shut. The catches, however, were within her reach. Should she attempt to open them and make a leap for it?

Had she but known it, those doors were supposed to open only when the cage was level with the floor. But the infinite power that tempers the wind to the shorn lamb sometimes tampers with man-made doors. As if by magic, the doors swung back at her touch and with a leap she was out and away.

Then, gripping her madly beating heart, she paused to consider. She was free from the elevator, but where was she? Her situation seemed more desperate than before. She had not counted the floors that sped by her. She did not know whether she was on the sixth or the tenth floor.

Reason was beginning to come into its own. With a steadier stride she took a turn about the place. Putting out a hand, she touched first this object, then that.

“Furniture,” she said at last. “Now on what floor is furniture sold?”

She did not know.

Coming at last to a great overstuffed davenport, she sat down upon it. Feeling its drowsy comfort after her hot race, she was half tempted to stretch herself out upon it, to spread the splendid cape over her, and thus to spend the night.

“It won’t do,” she decided resolutely. “Every extra moment I spend here makes it worse.”

At that she rose and looked about her. Over to the right was a broad stretch of pale light.

“It’s the moonlight falling through the great skylight of the rotunda,” she breathed.

Instantly she began making her way in that direction. Arrived at the railing, she looked down. She was high up. The very thought of the dizzy depth below made her feel faint; yet, fighting against this faintness, she persisted in looking down until she had established the fact that she was on the sixth floor. There remained then but to descend three flights of stairs to find the blessed third floor and, perhaps, Rennie.

She was not long in descending. Then, such a silent cry of joy as escaped her lips as she saw Rennie’s light still dimly burning in the far corner.

Slipping on the cape, the better to hide the dust and dirt she had collected from many falls, she at last tiptoed up close to the desk where Rennie was working.

“Hello, dearie,” said Rennie, smiling up at her through her thick glasses. “Ready to go? In just one moment.”

Lucile caught her breath in astonishment. Then the truth burst upon her. The whole wild adventure through which she had been driven at lightning speed had consumed but half an hour. So intent upon her work had dear old Rennie been that she had not noted the passing of time.

Some three minutes later, arm in arm, they were making their way down the dark and gloomy marble stairs; and a moment later, having safely passed the guard, they were out on the deserted street.

The instant they passed through the door they were caught in a great whirl of wind and snow that carried them half the way to State Street before they could check their mad gait. For Rennie, who was to take the surface line, this was well enough; but for Lucile it meant an additional half block of beating her way back to her station on the “L.”

With a screamed “Good-night” that was caught up and carried away by the storm, she tore herself away and, bending low, leaped full into the teeth of the gale.

A royal battle ensued. The wind, seeming to redouble its fury at sight of a fresh victim, roared at her, tore at her, then turning and twisting, appeared to shake her as some low born parent shakes his child. Snow cut her face. The blue cape, wrapping about her more than once, tripped her for a near fall.

“But it’s warm! Oh, so warm!” she breathed. Then, even in the midst of all this, she asked herself the meaning of all this strange mystery of the night, and, of a sudden, the sight of Laurie stepping into that tortuous chute flashed back upon the screen of her memory.

Stopping stock still to grasp a post of the elevated’s steel frame, she steadied herself and tried to think. Should she turn back? Should she make one more attempt to rescue Laurie from whatever plight he may have gotten himself into?

For a moment, swaying like a dead leaf on a tree, she clung there.

“No! No!” she said at last, “I wouldn’t go back there to-night! Not for worlds!” She made one desperate leap across the street and was the next moment beating her way up the steel stairway to the elevated.

Once aboard the well heated train, with the fur lined cape adding its cozy warmth to her chilled and weary body, she relaxed for the first time to think in a quiet way of the night’s affair.

A careful review of events convinced her that she had behaved in quite a wild and insane manner at times, but that on the whole the outcome was quite satisfactory. Certainly she could not have been expected to return home without a wrap on a night such as this. Surely she had had nothing whatever to do with Laurie’s giving away his pass-out, nor of his flinging himself so recklessly down the parcel chute. He was almost a stranger to her. Why, then, should she concern herself with the outcome of an affair which he had clearly entered into of his own free will?

On this last point she could not feel quite comfortable, but since the elevated train was hurling her homeward and since she could not, had she used her utmost will-power, have driven herself back into that great darkened store, and since there was no likelihood of her being admitted without a pass, she concluded that she must still be moving in the path of destiny.

In strange contrast to the wild whirling storm outside, she found her room a cozy nook of comfort. After throwing off her street clothes and going through a series of wild gymnastics that came very near to flying, she drew on her