they went to the Square, keeping to the center of it where the
lights were brightest and the people fewest.

``I'm sure something's happened,'' said Sophie. ``Maybe Otto has
told him a story --or has--''

``No--not Otto.'' Hilda dismissed the suggestion as impossible.
She had known Otto too long and too well to entertain for an
instant the idea that he could be underhanded. ``There's only
one reason-- he's sick, very sick--too sick to send word.''

``Let's go and see,'' said Sophie, as if she had not planned it
hours before.

Hilda hesitated. ``It might look as if I--'' She did not
finish.

``But you needn't show yourself,'' replied Sophie. ``You can
wait down the street and I'll go up to the door and won't give my
name.''

Hilda clasped her arm more tightly about Sophie's waist and they
set out. They walked more and more swiftly until toward the last
they were almost running. At the corner of Fifteenth Street and
First Avenue Hilda stopped. ``I'll go through to Stuyvesant
Square,'' she said, ``and wait there on a bench near the
Sixteenth Street entrance. You'll be quick, won't you?''

Sophie went to Mr. Feuerstein's number and rang. After a long
wait a slovenly girl in a stained red wrapper, her hair in