trying to find some clue to her actions.

"The character?" she repeated, apparently puzzled at first. "Oh, yes.
That is Mr. Daly's gaming-house. I came to New York to play at
roulette there."

She was looking at me so frankly that I was sure she was wholly
ignorant of evil.

"My father is too ill to play himself," she explained, "so I must find
a hotel near Mr. Daly's house, and then I shall play every night until
our fortune is made. Tonight I lost nearly two thousand dollars. But
I was nervous in that strange place. And the system expressly says
that one may lose at first. To-morrow I raise the stakes and we shall
begin to win. See?"

She pulled a little pad from her bag covered with a maze of figuring.

"But where do you come from?" I asked. "Where is your father?"

Again I saw that look of terror come into her eyes. She glanced
quickly about her, and I was sure she was thinking of escaping from me.

I hastened to reassure her.

"Forgive me," I said. "It is no business of mine. And now, if you
will trust me a little further I will try to find a hotel for you."

It would have disarmed the worst man to feel her little hand slipped
into his arm in that docile manner of hers. I took her to the Seward,