“‘I beg your pardon, but I had better see you safely with your friends,’ he replied, so gallantly that I feared I had seemed discourteous, and let him have his way. After all, I reflected, he had been very kind and respectful; I really had no grounds for dreading him.
“While we drove along the rainy streets, he told me that his name was Adelbert Stanley, and that he lived in Chicago. I returned his courtesy by giving him my own name, and added the particulars of my visit to the World’s Fair with my teacher and friends.
“By this time we had reached our destination. The carriage stopped, Mr. Stanley handed me out, and led me up the steps of a large, gloomy looking house that in the still pouring rain I did not notice bore no resemblance to my hotel. But when I was led along a broad hall into a garishly furnished apartment, I stared about me in sudden alarm.
“‘This is not my hotel! the room is perfectly strange to me!’ I cried, starting toward the door in haste to get away.
“‘No, no, there is no mistake in the hotel. A blundering servant has simply shown you to the wrong room. Please remain here quietly a minute while I have the mistake rectified,’ returned Mr. Stanley, with a pleasant smile, as he went out, leaving me alone and half terrified in the room.”
CHAPTER XXXIV.
“I WISH I COULD WARN EVERY YOUNG GIRL IN THE LAND TO BEWARE OF FASCINATING STRANGERS AND SILLY FLIRTATIONS!”
Lena Lavarre was listening with breathless interest to every word that fell from the lips of Violet. The full flood of moonlight pouring through the curtainless window of the otherwise unlighted room, showed her face strained and eager, her brown eyes dilated and gleaming.
But not a word came from her parted lips to break the thread of the speaker’s narration; she was too eager to come to the climax.
Violet drew a long, sobbing breath, and continued:
“I waited impatiently for about ten minutes, when Mr. Stanley suddenly returned, followed by a servant with a tray containing an elegant repast, which she proceeded to arrange on a table. In the meantime the young man said, easily: