dark wharf the figure of a heavily veiled woman had hurried down
the narrow alley to the entrance of the drinking-place the two men
had just quitted.

Here she paused and looked about, and then as though satisfied that
she had at last reached the place she sought, she pushed bravely
into the interior of the vile den.

A score of half-drunken sailors and wharf-rats looked up at the
unaccustomed sight of a richly gowned woman in their midst. Rapidly
she approached the slovenly barmaid who stared half in envy, half
in hate, at her more fortunate sister.

"Have you seen a tall, well-dressed man here, but a minute since,"
she asked, "who met another and went away with him?"

The girl answered in the affirmative, but could not tell which way
the two had gone. A sailor who had approached to listen to the
conversation vouchsafed the information that a moment before as he
had been about to enter the "pub" he had seen two men leaving it
who walked toward the wharf.

"Show me the direction they went," cried the woman, slipping a coin
into the man's hand.

The fellow led her from the place, and together they walked quickly
toward the wharf and along it until across the water they saw a
small boat just pulling into the shadows of a nearby steamer.

"There they be," whispered the man.