even her own family knew her secret.

``When is Mr. Feuerstein coming again?'' asked her father when a
week had passed.

``I don't know just when. Soon,'' answered Hilda, in a tone
which made it impossible for such a man as he to inquire further.

Sophie brought all her cunning to bear in her effort to get at
the facts. But Hilda evaded her hints and avoided her traps.
After much thinking she decided that Mr. Feuerstein had probably
gone for good, that Hilda was hoping when there was nothing to
hope for, and that her own affairs were suffering from the
cessation of action. She was in the mood to entertain the basest
suggestions her craft could put forward for making marriage
between Hilda and Otto impossible. But she had not yet reached
the stage at which overt acts are deliberately planned upon the
surface of the mind.

One of her girl friends ran in to gossip with her late in the
afternoon of the eighth day after Mr. Feuerstein's ``parting
scene'' in Tompkins Square. The talk soon drifted to Hilda, whom
the other girl did not like.

``I wonder what's become of that lover of hers--that tall fellow
from up town?'' asked Miss Hunneker.

``I don't know,'' replied Sophie in a strained, nervous manner.
``I always hated to see Hilda go with him. No good ever comes
of that sort of thing.''