"Yes, I did," answered the advance man doggedly. "Why shouldn't I?"
"I'm sorry," she said. "She's the last woman in the world I want to see. I never want to see her again. If she calls I won't see her." Glancing at the clock, she added: "I must be going. What are you doing here?"
Weston smiled grimly.
"Wasting time, I guess. Quiller said there might be something to-day. He's said the same every day for three months past."
"Well, I must go," she said. "Good-bye, I'll probably see you at the house."
"Yes," he nodded. "Maybe there'll be some good news to tell you, but I doubt it."
The girl disappeared and Jim resumed his seat, patiently awaiting his turn to see Mr. Quiller.
CHAPTER X.
Mrs. Farley's establishment was situated on Forty ——th Street, between Eighth and Ninth Avenues, a neighborhood at one time much in vogue, but now given up almost entirely to boarding-houses of the cheaper kind. Old-fashioned brownstone residences, with high ceilings, cracked walls, dirty, paper-patched windows, and narrow little gardens choked up with weeds, they were as unattractive-looking from without as they were gloomy and destitute of comfort within. Yet poverty-stricken as were the surroundings, the street itself was respectable enough. As in the case of a homely woman, its very ugliness served to keep its morals above reproach. Vice required more alluring quarters than these for profitable pursuit of its red-light trade. If, therefore, a woman stood in need of a certificate of character, all that was necessary was to say that she lived there.