physiological response, in the shape of acute pain, to this simple psychological test having convinced her that she could not be dreaming, her mind had grown more and more numb in the fruitless effort to grasp and to co-ordinate the disorganized impossibilities which were of fered to her by this singular person in the guise of the most commonplace facts. The one point at all clear to her was that in some unaccountable way--which she obviously was supposed to understand-his panoramic scheme of matrimony was the natural outgrowth of his profession; and, this thought being the only clear concept in her mind as he ceased speaking, she sought along the line thus indicated for further enlightenment.

"What is your profession?" she asked. "Why, bless my soul!" the man exclaimed. "I thought you understood all along. I'm a burglar."

V.

When

So strained were Mrs. Harver's receptive faculties, and so pleasantly and naturally was this statement made, that some seconds elapsed before she at all grasped its horrifying import. she did realize the situation, however, her suddenly aroused mind worked with a vigor that was all the more marked because it went off at a decided tangent with the facts.

"A burglar!" she shrieked-and instantly sprang upon the chair in which she had been seated and tucked her skirts in tight around her feet. The lucid explanation which she gave subsequently of this curious action was that rats were her greatest horror, and that it was like rats just then.

The burglar also sprang to his feet. "'S-s-s-s-h!" he exclaimed. "Don't make a row like that. You'll wake everybody up."

He was quite steady upon his legs now. Apparently the abrupt break in the conversation had had the effect of counteracting what remained of the mellowing influence of the sherry. This inference was encouraged by the businesslike tone and tenor of his next utterance. 'Come," he said, "I can't afford to fool around here any longer. I must get to work. Where do you keep your sil

ver ?"

Without replying to this question,

Mrs. Harver untucked her skirts from about her feet-realizing that the especial peril in which she found herself was not adequately met by this particular measure of defence-and stepped down from the chair. She was a plucky little woman, and, now that she had got over the first shock of alarm, she was not by any means badly frightened. She was quite cool enough to know that the best thing for her to do was to get to the district telegraph call, in Mr. Harver's dressingroom, and to ring for a policeman; and she was silent not because she was frightened, but because her wits were at work trying to devise some plan by which this intelligent flank movement could be executed.

Not unnaturally, however, the burglar attributed her silence to fear; and it was in a reassuring tone that he continued: "I say, I'm not going to hurt you-not if you behave yourself, that is. But I'm here on business, and I've got to get at it. I was so wet and cold and hungry when I came in that the sherry was too much for me. I'm all right now, and I mean to put this job through with a rush to make up for lost time. You take the silver up stairs nights, don't you? Whereabouts is it? And who's up there? Not your husband, I know, for he's in New York. Now, then, speak up lively. There's no time to lose.

Mrs. Harver would have been a good deal startled by this exhibition of accurate knowledge in regard to her husband's movements had not her mind suddenly become engrossed by consideration of what seemed to be a perfectly feasible plan-suggested to her by the question as to the whereabouts of the silver-for getting within reach of the district telegraph call. The emotional side of her nature rejected this plan, deeming it a close approach to sacrilege; but the intellectual side-urging that the claims of practical utility were superior to the claims of mere sentimentality-carried the day. Therefore she answered: "Excepting the servants in the attics, there is no one in the house besides myself. And the silverbasket," Mrs. Harver spoke with a nice precision that the burglar by no means appreciated, “is in Mr. Harver's dressingroom-the room just at the head of those stairs. If you are in a hurry, we had better go there at once."

"Now that's coolness, and it's also

sense," he answered, admiringly; and added: "Pardon me if I reverse the custom of good society and take your arm, instead of offering you mine."

"Certainly," Mrs. Harver replied; but her heart sank a little as she felt the burglar's hand settle upon her arm in a vigorous clasp.

66

"Don't be alarmed," he said, as they went up the stairs together. 'Giving you this police grip seems brutal, I know. But, you see, I've got to keep on the safe side. If I gave you the chance, you might take it into your head to bolt and try to raise the servants. Is this the room?"

Yes, but the door is locked on the inside. I must trouble you to come around through the front room. This way, please." In spite of herself, there was a slight touch of eagerness in Mrs. Harver's tone.

The burglar stopped short, and his clutch upon her arm perceptibly tightened. In a low but deeply earnest voice he said: "See here, you're a long ways too polite and obliging. You're up to some sort of mischief. Now just take my advice and, whatever it is, don't try it on--for as sure as you do I'll stick a knife into you! I've run this business in Beacon Street style so far, because you're a lady and I'm a gentleman. But I want you to understand that it is business, all the same, and that if you try to come any of your monkey shines on me you'll get hurt. If you've got a man up here, and mean to spring him on me, it 'll be the worse for you, for I swear to Heaven I'll make sure of killing you before the fight begins! The comic opera part of this performance is played out. We've got along to the cold facts. If there's anybody in there, say If there isn't, go ahead.” Standing in the dark, with a burglar grasping her arm and threatening in tones of obvious sincerity to murder her, Mrs. Harver naturally was exceedingly alarmed. The situation was a trying and an unusual one. But, fortunately, being a little woman- and therefore quick-tempered-her anger overcame her fear. The brazen impudence of the proposal to kill her in her own house, and especially on the part of a proposer who had not a shadow of right to be inside of it, irritated her to such an extent that her strongest desire was to push ahead with her plan for bringing up her would-be murderer with a very round turn. For a moment

so.

she set her teeth hard, and then she said: "I have told you already that there is no one on this floor. If you prefer to break in a locked door to opening a door that is not locked, I am sure that I have no objections. I really think, though, that you will save time by coming around through my room."

Mrs. Harver's composure was more apparent than real. Every nerve in her body was tense, and her heart was beating violently. She held her breath while she waited for the burglar's reply--and it was with a sigh of relief that she felt his grasp upon her arm relax and heard him say, in tones of deep conviction: "You certainly are the very coolest woman I ever came across. You'd chill a refrigerator! Come along"-and then they went on into the front room.

The gas was burning at a full head, as Mrs. Harver had left it. On her dressing table was her watch and a tray in which were a pair of bracelets and some rings. The burglar's trained eye caught the glitter of these objects, and he stepped towards them.

Mrs. Harver restrained him gently. "Will it not be a more convenient arrangement to get the silver-basket first?" she asked. "My little things can go right in on top, you know."

The burglar looked at her admiringly. "There's sense in that," he said, and added: "You really are a wonderful woman. I used to think that the third Mrs. Wilbraham-no, it was the fourth, the Chicago one-was cool. But she was nothing to you. I should say that in summer you'd be useful as an ice-machine!"

Ignoring this compliment, though she highly appreciated it, Mrs. Harver suffered herself to be led into the dressing-room -where one of the gas brackets over the bureau, in readiness for Mr. Harver's coming, was lighted and turned low. The bureau stood against the rear wall between the windows. On a chair in front of one of these windows, directly beneath the lighted gas bracket, was the silver-basket containing Thomas's remains. Against the frame of the other window, concealed by the curtain, was the district telegraph call. Mrs. Harver's breath was coming in little gasps.

As the burglar turned the gas up full he gave a quick glance around him to make sure that he had not been led into some sort of a trap. But he saw no signs

of a trap-and there was the promised silver-basket. It was a large, satisfactory silver-basket, with the look of weighing many pounds. In his eagerness to test its weight he dropped Mrs. Harver's arm and poised the basket in his hand-and the slight jingling sound that came from within as he raised it fell very musically upon his ear. Mrs. Harver's fingers were upon the key of the call box at that moment and the jingling almost unnerved her for the task that she had in hand-so intimately was it associated with tender memories of a trotting little gray figure which nevermore would trot again! The feeling that in using Thomas as a decoy cat she was committing sacrilege again occurred to her. What indignity might not be put upon his remains should the burglar open the basket? This thought fortunately came to steady her. With a firm hand she moved the key back to the police call.

On the burglar's face was a sunny smile as he exclaimed: "Twenty pounds, if there's an ounce! This is what I call luck!"

B-z-z-z-z-z-z! A patter of feet on the carpet! The slamming of a door, followed instantly by the click of a lock!

These phenomena, although successive, occurred with such rapidity that to the burglar they seemed to be simultaneous. At their conclusion he found himself alone with the silver-basket, and momentarily stunned by the shock incident to a painful but ideally complete surprise.

As his shock subsided, acting less on reason than on impulse, he rushed to the closed door and lunged against it with his shoulder violently. The noise produced by this concussion was dangerously loud. He hesitated before repeating the blow. This unlooked-for demonstration alarmed Mrs. Harver-whose mental arrangement of the matter had been that he would try to run away, and would be caught by the policeman in the back alley; not that he would remain and murder her before the policeman arrived. She therefore felt called upon to counsel him, and, while he hesitated about continuing his battery against the door, addressed him in distinct tones from the other side:

"I don't think that you quite understand. Please listen for a moment," she said politely. "I have rung for a policeman. When we call a messenger, one

The

usually comes within four minutes. policeman probably will get here in about the same time. If you want to leave before his arrival you have very little time-three minutes, at the most. Of course I don't want to seem to hurry you-but, indeed, I think that you had better go."

Before Mrs. Harver had quite finished this deliverance of intelligent advice the burglar had begun to act upon it. She heard him unlock and open the door leading into the passage; she heard him dash down stairs, and she heard the slamming behind him of the spring door leading into the kitchen. An instant later there was the sound of hurrying footsteps on the front pavement, and then a sharp ring at the bell.

Mrs. Harver opened a window and saw a policeman standing on the steps. "Quick!" she cried. "There's a burglar getting away by the alley!"

Naturally, Mrs. Harver was desirous of seeing as much as possible of what was going on; and in the hope that some part of the scene of operations would be visible from the windows in Mr. Harver's dressing-room, she unlocked the door again and passed into that apartment. But she never got to the back windows. Midway in her passage across the room she stopped suddenly and stood with agonized wide-open eyes staring into ghastly nothingness the silverbasket, with Thomas inside of it, was gone! With a deep groan she collapsed into a heap upon the floor and burst into tears.

There she sat, weeping bitterly, when, ten minutes later, Mr. Harver came back with the information that the burglar had got safe away.

"Then Thomas is lost to us forever!" she said in hollow tones of woe.