"Yet you pretended a little while since that you and your mother had hard work to get along."

"Business is looking up."

Edgar got out at Twenty-Third Street. Mark kept on till he reached Forty-Seventh Street. He walked toward Seventh Avenue, and finally stood in front of the house in which the customer for the diamond rings was staying. It was a plain three-story residence with nothing peculiar about it. Mark rang the bell, little suspecting what was in store for him.

A boy of about seventeen, shabbily dressed, answered the bell.

"Is Mrs. Montgomery at home?" asked Mark, referring to a card.

"I guess so," answered the boy.

"I should like to see her."

"All right! I'll go up and ask."

The boy left Mark standing in the doorway, and went up-stairs.

He returned in a very short time.