"There's one thing that I forgot to tell you," he went on, hesitatingly. "I—it's only what they tell me down there—they say Beekman does not live alone. I thought you ought to know...."
Leslie flushed for an instant and drew back, and then pressed on again.
"I know," she said, "that is, I suppose—but never mind that. I've wronged this man and I won't let another day pass over my head without trying to right the wrong—if it ever can be righted." She tightened her grasp on the man's arm. "How can a wrong like that ever be righted?" she asked.
But Ilingsworth himself knew something about wrongs, and muttered half-aloud as he glanced at the darkened heavens:
"Are my wrongs ever to be righted?"
XXIII
Before one of a long row of dilapidated tenement houses away over on the East Side of the city, the cabman halted. Leslie had ordered him to drive like the wind, promising double fare; and consequently he had covered the ground in a ridiculously short period of time.
To the girl, familiar only with the better localities of the city, the squalor of the place was appalling. It all looked so dark and mysterious that she hesitated for a time before consenting to go in; but at last, overcoming her repugnance, she brought herself to the point where she could make the ascent of the narrow stairway which led to Beekman's room, and she began to climb the stairs, clutching at Ilingsworth as they went.