She left the room, and in a few moments returned, wrapped from head to
foot in an enormous plaid shawl. A white woollen scarf thrown over her
bare brown head, and twice rolled around her neck, almost concealed her
face from view. When she had parted from her husband, and reached the
darkened hall below, she drew from beneath the folds of her shawl a
thick blue veil, with which she completely enveloped her features. As
she opened the front door and peered out into the night, her own husband
would have scarcely recognized her.

With her head lowered against the keen wind she walked rapidly down
the street and stopped for an instant at the door of the fourth house.
Glancing quickly back at the house she had left and then at the closed
windows of the one she had halted before, she gathered her skirts with
one hand and sped away from both, never stopping until she reached the
door of the Independence Hotel.




CHAPTER III


Mrs. Blandford entered the side door boldly. Luckily for her, the
austerities of the Sabbath were manifest even here; the bar-room was
closed, and the usual loungers in the passages were absent. Without
risking the recognition of her voice in an inquiry to the clerk, she
slipped past the office, still muffled in her veil, and quickly mounted
the narrow staircase. For an instant she hesitated before the public
parlor, and glanced dubiously along the half-lit corridor. Chance