"Tell her to come up," she said. "I'll see her here. Mother Clancy, don't you dare hide."
The girl hastily arranged her hair and straightened the room, and a few minutes later, when the boy ushered the visitor into the apartments, she was self-possessed and cool. She arose as the door opened, and started forward to meet her guest, but stopped staring as the color faded from her face and then slowly heightened.
"You are Miss Tabor?" inquired the visitor, her voice trembling from excitement and nervousness.
"Yes. You are Miss Helen Baldwin; you desired to see me?"
The sight of the girl she had seen talking with Kohinoor McCarthy in the hotel parlor, shortly after he joined the club, had shaken her composure.
"Oh, Miss Tabor," Helen Baldwin cried, sinking into a chair and giving way to her emotions. "I had to come—I had nowhere else to go—and they told me over the telephone only you and Mrs. Clancy were here and all the men of the team away."
"If it is baseball business," replied Miss Tabor, "perhaps you'd better see Mrs. Clancy. I'll call her"——
"No! no! no!" expostulated the girl, drying her eyes. "It is you I must see. Have you heard anything from Mr. McCarthy?"
"I have no especial reason to hear from Mr. McCarthy," said Miss Tabor, freezing slowly. "I suppose he is with the team."
"He isn't! He isn't!" pleaded the girl. "He has disappeared—— Haven't you seen the papers?"