Adrien Leroy

"Yes--Jessica!" retorted Miss Lester, her jewels flashing in a chance

ray of sunlight which had found its way through the dingy court. "Where

is she?"

"She is not at home," said Mr. Wilfer. "She and Martha 'ave gone out for

the day to Greenwich. If you'd wrote a-sayin' you was goin' to call I'd

have made 'em stay till you came."

Miss Lester looked at him keenly.

"If you don't believe me," said Wilfer, "go upstairs and look at her

room."

Ada ran past him up the stairs, and quickly returned.

"It's locked," she said.

"Of course; she's quite the lady--keeps the keys 'erself," sneered

Johann. "Look 'ere, 'ere's her hat and coat; there's one of 'er boots,

so she must be comin' back afore long."

Miss Lester appeared convinced. She breathed more freely, as if a weight

had been taken off her mind.

"Here," she said, putting some gold coins in his hand, "is something to

make up for my troubling you. But I was real anxious to know if

everything was right with the gal."

Wilfer--debauched and demoralised by drink--was disposed to look at the

worst side of things; and from this point of view thought she meant the

reverse of what she said.

"Would you be very much cut up," he said slyly, "if she wasn't able to

trouble you any more or answer awkward questions, miss?"

She turned on him with a fierceness that made him recoil.

"If anything happens to that gal," she shouted, "I'll turn the police on

you. For, mind my words--I mean them--I shouldn't have cared yesterday

very much if I had learnt she was dead, but now I want her. Do you hear?

I want her, and you take care she's alive and ready when I come for

her."

Then, without vouchsafing any further information, she flounced away,

leaving Mr. Wilfer staring blankly after her, and wishing for once that

he had stayed his hand, instead of driving the girl into the miseries

and dangers of the streets.

Little did Wilfer or Miss Lester imagine that Jessica had found safety

and refuge in Adrien Leroy's chambers.