Next morning 'Mandy went back with me to my room. There was no one in it. For a moment the thought came to me that perhaps I had suffered from a nightmare. My clothes, everything, I found exactly as I had left them. I went over to the door opening from my room into the laboratory, and then I knew that I had not erred: the door was unlocked. I saw 'Mandy watching me, and I think she guessed the truth, for she said:

"You needn't be 'fraid no more, chile. I goin' to sleep with you every night now."

"No, 'Mandy," I said; "I can't stay here now. I've got to get away somehow."

"Dat's all right, chile," she said. "Jus' you tek you li'l' bag and slip out right now. No one's stirring in dis house yet. You won't be missed till after you sure am gone."

I was sitting on the side of the bed, feverishly turning the matter over in my mind.

"I wish I could do that," I said, "but I have no place to go, and I have no money."

'Mandy comforted me as best she could, and told me to wait till after breakfast, when I'd feel better; then I could talk to the doctor about it, and perhaps he'd give me some money; and if he wouldn't, said the colored girl, shrewdly, "you tell him you goin' ask his wife."

I felt I could not do that. I would have to find some other solution. One thing was certain, however, I could no more stay here than I could in Jamaica. There are times in my life when I have been whipped and scorched, and nothing has healed me save to get away quickly from the place where I have suffered. I felt like that in Jamaica. I felt like that now. There came another time in my life when I uprooted my whole being from a place I loved, and yet where it would have killed me to remain.

The doctor met me in the lower hall as I came down-stairs. His manner was affable and formal, and he said he would take me to his wife. I found myself unable to look him in the face, for I felt his glance would be hateful.

Mrs. Manning was in bed, propped up with pillows. At first glance she seemed an old woman. Her pale, parched face lay like a shadow among her pillows, and her fine, silvery hair was like an exquisite aureole. She had dark, restless, seeking eyes, and her expression was peevish, like that of a complaining child. As I came in, she raised herself to her elbow, and looked curiously at me and then at the doctor, who said:

"This is Miss Ascough, dear. She is to be my new secretary."

She put out a thin little hand, which I took impetuously in my own, and, I know not why, I suddenly wanted to cry again. There was something in her glance that hurt me. I had for her that same overwhelming pity that I had felt for Miss Foster in Jamaica—a pity such as one involuntarily feels toward one who is doomed. She murmured something, and I said, "Thank you," though I did not understand what she had said. Then the doctor shook up her pillows and settled her back very carefully among them, and he kissed her, and she clung to him. I realized that, incredible as it seemed, here where I had expected it least there was love.

After breakfast, which I had with the doctor, who read the morning paper throughout the meal, waited on by 'Mandy, he took me down to his offices, two large adjoining rooms on the ground floor, in one wing of the house. One room was used as a reception-room, the other as the doctor's own. Showing me through the offices, he had indicated the desk at which I was to sit in the reception-room before I summoned the courage to tell him I had decided to go. When I faltered this out, he turned clear around, and although an exclamation of astonishment escaped him, I knew that he was acting. I felt sure that he had been waiting for me to say something about the previous night.

"You certainly cannot realize what you are saying, Miss Ascough. Why should you leave a position before trying it?"

I looked steadily in his face now, and I was no longer afraid of him. I was only an ignorant girl of seventeen, and he was a man of the world past forty. I was friendless, had no money, and was in a strange country. He was a man of power, and, I suppose, even wealth. This was the city where he was respected and known. Nevertheless, I said to him:

"If I work for a man, I expect to be paid for my actual labor. That's a contract between us. After that, I have my personal rights, and no man can step over these without my consent."

They were pretty big words for a young girl, and I am proud of them even now. I can see myself as I faced that man defiantly, though I knew I had barely enough money in my purse upstairs to buy a few meals.

"I do not understand you," said the doctor, pulling at his beard. "I shall be obliged if you will make yourself clearer."

"I will, then," I said. "Last night you came into my room."

For a long time he did not say a word, but appeared to be considering the matter.

"I beg your pardon for that," he said at last, "but I think my explanation will satisfy you. I did not know that that room was the one my wife had assigned to you. I had been accustomed to occupy it myself when engaged at night upon laboratory work. I was as mortified as you when I discovered my unfortunate mistake last night, and I very much regret the distress it gave you."

No explanation could have been clearer than that, but looking at the man, I felt a deep-rooted conviction that he lied.

"Come now," he said cheerfully, "suppose we dismiss this painful subject. Let us both forget it." He held out his hand, with one of his "fatherly" smiles. I reluctantly let him take mine, and I did not know what to do or say. He took out his watch and looked at it.

"I have a number of calls to make before my noon hour," he said, "but I think I can spare an hour to explain your duties to you."

They were simple enough, and in other circumstances I should have liked such a position. I was to receive the patients, send out bills, and answer the correspondence, which was light. I had one other duty, and that he asked me to do now. There was something wrong with his eyes, and it was a strain upon them for him to read. So part of my work was to read to him an hour in the morning and one or two in the evening.

There was a long couch in the inner office, and after he had selected a book and brought it to me, he lay down on the couch, with a green shade over his eyes, and bade me proceed. The book was Rousseau's "Confessions."

In ordinary circumstances the book would have held my interest at once, but now I read it without the slightest sense of understanding, and the powerful sentences came forth from my lips, but passed through heedless ears. I had read only two chapters when he said that that would do for to-day. He asked me to bring from the top of his desk a glass in which was some fluid and an eye-dropper. He requested me to put two drops in each of his eyes.

As he was lying on his back on the couch, I had to lean over him to do this. I was so nervous that the glass shook in my hand. Judge of my horror when, in squeezing the little rubber bulb, the glass part fell off and dropped down upon his face.

I burst out crying, and before I knew it, he was sitting up on the couch and comforting me, with his arms about my waist. I freed myself and stood up. He said:

"There, there, you are a bit hysterical this morning. You'll feel better later."

He began moving about the office, collecting some things, and putting them into a little black bag. Toby knocked, and called that the buggy was ready. As the doctor was drawing on his gloves he said:

"Now, Miss Ascough, suppose you make an effort to—er accustom yourself to things as they are here. I'm really not such a bad sort as you imagine, and I will try to make you very comfortable and happy if you will let me."

I did not answer him. I sat there twisting my handkerchief in my hands, and feeling dully that I was truly the most miserable girl in the world. As the doctor was going out, he said:

"Do cheer up! Things are not nearly as bad as they seem."

Maybe they were not, but, nevertheless, the stubborn obsession persisted in my mind that I must somehow get away from that place. How I was going to do that without money or friends, I did not know. And if I did leave this place, where could I go?

I thought of writing home, and then, even in my distress, I thought of papa, absent-minded, impractical dreamer. Could I make him understand the situation I was in without telling him my actual experience? I felt a reluctance to tell my father or mother that. It's a fact that a young girl will often talk with strangers about things that she will hesitate to confide to her own parents. My parents were of the sort difficult to approach in such a matter. You see, I was one of many, and my father and mother were in a way even more helpless than their children. It was almost pathetic the way in which they looked to us, as we grew up, to take care of ourselves and them. Besides, it would take two days for a letter to reach my home, and another two days for the reply to reach me, and where could my poor father raise the money for my fare? No, I would not add to their distresses.

I went up to my room, after the doctor was gone, and I aimlessly counted my money. I had less than three dollars. I was putting it back into my bag, with the papers, trinkets, cards, and the other queer things that congregate in a girl's pocketbook, when Mr. Hamilton's card turned up on my lap.

I began to think of him. I sat there on the side of my bed in a sort of dreaming trance, recalling to my mind that charmed little journey in the company of this man. Every word he had said to me, the musing expression of his face, and his curious, grudging smile—I thought of all this. It was queer how in the midst of my trouble I could occupy my mind like this with thoughts of a stranger. I remembered that Dr. Manning had said he was a notorious man. I did not believe that. I thought of that kindly look of interest in his tired face when he had asked me if I wanted to go to school, and then electrically recurred to me his last words on the train when he had given to me his card,—that if I ever needed help, would I come to him?

I needed help now. I needed it more than any girl ever needed it before. Of that I felt truly convinced. This doctor was a villain. There was something bad and covetous about his very glance. I had felt that in Jamaica. It was impossible for me to remain alone with him in his house; for I should be virtually alone, since his wife was a paralytic.

Hurriedly I packed my things, shoving everything back into my suitcase, and then I put on my hat. In the doctor's office I found the telephone-book. I looked up the name of Hamilton. Yes, it was there. It seemed to me a miraculous thing that he really was there in that telephone-book and that he actually was in this city.

I called the number, and somebody, answering, asked whom I wished to speak to, and I said Mr. Roger Avery Hamilton.

"Who is it wants him?" I was asked.

"Just a friend," I replied.

"You will have to give your name. Mr. Hamilton is in a conference, and if it is not important, he cannot speak to you just now."

"It is important," I said. "He would want to speak to me, I know."

There was a long pause, and central asked me if I was through, and I said frantically:

"No, no; don't ring off."

Then a moment later I heard his voice, and even over the telephone it thrilled me so that I could have wept with relief and joy.

"Yes?"

"Mr. Hamilton, this is Miss Ascough."

"Miss Ascough?"

"Yes; I met you on the train coming from Boston."

"Oh, yes, the little girl with the dog," he said.

His voice, more than his words, warmed me with the thought that he had not forgotten me, and was even pleased to hear from me again.

"You said if I ever needed help—"

I broke off there, and he said slowly:

"I—see. Where are you?"

I told him.

"Can you leave there right away?"

I said I could, but that I did not know my way about the city.

He asked me to meet him in half an hour at the St. R—— Hotel, and directed me explicitly what car to take to get there, telling me to write it down. I was to have 'Mandy put me on this car, and I must be sure to tell the conductor to let me off at this hotel. The car stopped in front of it.

I wrote a note to Dr. Manning before going. I said I was sorry to leave in this way, but despite what he had said, I could not trust him. I added that I was so unhappy I had decided the best thing for me to do was to go at once. I left the note with 'Mandy, whom I kissed good-by, something I had never dreamed I could do, kiss a black girl! All the way on the car I was desperately afraid the conductor would not let me off at the right place, and I asked him so often that finally, in exasperation, he refused to answer me. When we at last reached there, he wrathfully shouted the name of the hotel into the car, though he did not need to cry, "Step lively!"

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