Mrs. Sands leaned forward in her chair. "I'll tell you. You are living next door to the one girl in the world, probably, who can tell some little comforting thing about her daughter who disappeared four years ago. I want you to make friends with the girl and—"
But Dick slumped back in his chair with his hands up protestingly. "Me make friends with that girl!" he ejaculated; "Me? My Lord!"
Mrs. Sands shrugged her shoulders rather coolly. "Well," she said, "of course I know that you are too much occupied with your work to spend any period socially; but you could be quite sure that she would not trespass upon your time, as she, herself, seems to prefer isolation; but if you could make her acquaintance, you might be able to turn her over to me, by some careful management, and I might be able to pursuade her to talk to Mrs. Walters just once."
"No, no, you don't understand!" cried Dick, helplessly; "I mean that I couldn't make friends with her. I'm the last man on earth who could make friends with her. Why, if I tried to make friends with that girl, she'd set the police dog on me, and probably the Chinaman with his knife as well. My Lord, no! She'd rather see me in Tophet."
Mrs. Sands was staring at him wide-eyed. "What have you been doing?" she asked, tersely. "Have you met her already? I thought that she
