Patience went directly to her old quarters in Forty-Fourth Street. She told the cabman not to lift her trunk down until she ascertained if there was a vacant room in the house. The bell was answered by a maid that had been there in her time. The girl stifled a scream and fled. Patience shut the door behind her with a hand that trembled again, and went slowly upstairs to Miss Merrien’s room. A solemn voice answered her knock. When she opened the door Miss Merrien sprang up and came forward. Her face was drawn, her eyes were red.

“Oh, Mrs. Peele!” she cried.

“Do you believe it? If you do, I’ll go at once.”

“Of course I don’t believe it! How can you ask me? Sit down. How good of you to come here. Tell me—are you terribly frightened?”

“No, I don’t think I am now. Why should I be? If I am so unlucky as to have been tossed up in the news hat of the ‘Eye,’ I cannot help it; and I suppose this is only the beginning. If I have to go to jail I have to, and that is the end of it; but they cannot possibly convict me, for I am innocent.”

“Oh, you always were the bravest woman I ever knew. It is like you—Come.”

The door opened, and the landlady entered and closed it carefully behind her. She was a tall thin elderly woman with a refined face stamped with commercial unquiet. Her grey hair was piled high. Her voice was low, and well modulated. She looked at Patience out of faded blue eyes in which there was a faint sparkle of resentment.

“I see that you have a trunk on your cab, Mrs. Peele,” she said, “I am very sorry that I have no room.”

“I had no intention of asking you for a room,” said Patience, haughtily. “I merely came to call on Miss Merrien; and as I have only a few moments to spare, I should be obliged if you would leave us alone.”

The landlady retired in disorder, and Miss Merrien exhausted her vocabulary of invective.

“What is the use?” said Patience. “She is right. In the struggle for bread and butter it must be self first, last, and always. If it were known—as it would be—that I had been arrested from her house every other lodger would leave. Well, I must go roof-hunting.” She laughed suddenly. “If I do go to jail I suppose you’ll come to interview me. I hope so. Good-bye.”

Miss Merrien, although not a demonstrative girl, kissed her affectionately. “The ‘Day’ will defend you for all it’s worth—you know that. And I needn’t say anything about myself.”

Patience told her cabman to drive to the Holland House, but when he stopped there she did not get out. Reflection had convinced her that no hotel in New York would take her in. She dared not give a false name lest her motive should be misconstrued. She put her head out of the window and gave the man Rosita’s address.

“There is no other way,” she thought. “I cannot live in a cab. Mrs. Field would take me in, but I have no right to make such a test of friendship as that.”

Rosita received her with open arms. She was looking very beautiful in flowing nainsook and lace, and exhaled a new and delicious perfume.

“Patita! Patita mia!” she purred. “Pobrecita! Who would have thought that this would happen to my lili.” (Her accent was more pronounced than ever.)

“Can I stay with you until they arrest me, or this blows over?”

“You shall stay with me forever. ‘Are we not bound by the ties of childhood?’ That is a line in my new opera. Isn’t it funny? Ay, Patita, I am so sorry.” And she sent down for the trunk and removed Patience’s hat.