About five o'clock a young lady called to see Mrs. Sanford, and they seemed very intimate with each other. When they entered the sitting-room, Mrs. Sanford said:
"Ida, let me introduce to you Mr. Ingham; this is Miss Ida Musgrove, Mr. Ingham."
"Mrs. Sanford has spoken of you in such complimentary terms, Miss Ida," said Ingham, "that I have been very anxious to meet you."
"Now, how can you be so foolish, May," said Miss Ida, addressing Mrs. Sanford; "you always talk about me so extravagantly that people are very much disappointed when they meet me."
"Oh! that is quite impossible," chimed in Ingham. "I am sure that Mrs. Sanford hardly did you justice."
"I see, Mr. Ingham, that you are, like all the rest of your sex, a great flatterer," simpered Miss Ida, who was evidently greatly pleased with his compliments, but who wished to appear too modest to believe him to be in earnest.
Miss Ida was a brilliant brunette of fine features and figure. She was stylish and graceful in her appearance, and her dress showed remarkably good taste. She was very vivacious and merry, but a close observer would have noticed that she was not endowed with much sentiment, and a physiognomist would have said that she was more interested in the size of a man's fortune than in his looks or powers to please. The three chatted together very pleasantly for some time, and when Miss Ida rose to go, she said that she hoped to have the pleasure of seeing Mr. Ingham again; but she did not inform him where she lived, and was apparently rather indifferent with regard to him.
The next day Mrs. Sanford refurnished the back room where Mr. Trafton had died, and Ingham took the room vacated by the Graveses. On the same day, Mrs. Sanford missed her watch, and, after searching for it everywhere, she came to the conclusion that it had been stolen. She was greatly distressed about it, but she could not imagine who could have taken it.
A few days after this, Ingham came hurriedly into the sitting-room looking as if he had been running hard. He found Mrs. Sanford and Miss Ida in the kitchen, but when the former came into the sitting-room, he gave her a significant look, and said that he had "made a raise." Mrs. Sanford was highly pleased, but she had no time to make inquiries, as Miss Ida came in from the kitchen a moment later. They took supper together, and had a very gay time, as both Ingham and Mrs. Sanford were quite excited over the former's adventure. After Miss Ida had gone home, Ingham gave Mrs. Sanford ten dollars, and told her that he and another man had followed a stranger into the "Burnt District" just at dusk, and while the other man choked the stranger, Ingham had "gone through" his pockets. Owing to the fact that there were very few persons and no gas-lamps in their vicinity, they had not been observed in their work of robbery until they let the man go, when his shouts had attracted attention. He said that some men had chased them, and that he had escaped by running into a lumber-yard, where he had hidden the greater part of the plunder. He said that he had obtained a roll of bills, but that he could not tell how much money there was in all, as he had not had time to count it. He said that he did not expect to get much out of it, as he would be obliged to divide with his partner. The day following, Ingham, on his return to the house in the evening, found Mrs. Sanford standing in her room fixing her hair, while a man stood beside her with his arm around her waist. The door of her room was open, so that Ingham could not help seeing them, and he did not stop, but went straight to his own room. Mrs. Sanford soon afterward came to his door and told him that the man he had seen was Mr. Taylor G. Pratt, the real estate agent, who occupied the back parlor; that he was one of her best friends, and that he wanted to marry her. He had been away for the holidays, and had only just returned. She had told him that Ingham was her brother from Detroit, and that he was going to remain with her for some time. Ingham was then introduced to Mr Pratt, and they talked with each other until supper-time. Pratt was a middle-aged man, with a mean-looking face and suspicious manner. They went to a restaurant for supper, and the gentlemen paid the bill equally. Pratt seemed to expect Mrs. Sanford to pay her share, and this made her angry, though she said nothing about the matter at the time. When alone with Ingham, however, she said that Pratt was a miserly cub, with no generosity whatever. She borrowed five dollars from him, nevertheless, and then invented a story about having lost the money to escape paying it back.
The next evening, when Ingham returned to his lodgings, he found Mrs. Sanford in a sad plight; one eye was wholly closed and discolored, while her whole face was bruised and inflamed to such an extent as to make her an unpleasant object to look at. Charlie Stokes, the policeman, was sitting by the stove, and Mrs. Sanford, with her head done up in wet towels, was moaning on the sofa. She explained that Mrs. Graves had been there, and had seized her by the throat, beaten, scratched, and kicked her until she was perfectly helpless from her injuries. Charlie, the policeman, was trying to condole with her, but he was evidently out of favor, for she finally told him to go out and not bother her any longer.