Then, laying the paper against the glass, she drew back into the darkness and disappeared.

"Remain where you are, Edna!" cried Frank, springing toward the door. "In a moment I will return."

He was in the street in an instant.

Too late!

The woman was nowhere to be seen.

But there upon the window-sill, leaning against the glass, still rested a folded parchment, affording the most positive evidence of her presence before the house.

Search was useless.

Whoever the strange creature might be—if a being of this world indeed—she had but to turn the corner of Bleecker street to lose herself in the crowd.

With his mind filled with a thousand doubts and fears, Frank seized the parchment and returned to the room.

Without speaking a word he strode toward the table, and spread it out beneath the lighted lamp.