Had she but known it, those doors were supposed to open only when the cage was level with the floor. But the infinite power that tempers the wind to the shorn lamb sometimes tampers with man-made doors. As if by magic, the doors swung back at her touch and with a leap she was out and away.

Then, gripping her madly beating heart, she paused to consider. She was free from the elevator, but where was she? Her situation seemed more desperate than before. She had not counted the floors that sped by her.

She did not know whether she was on the sixth or the tenth floor.

Reason was beginning to come into its own. With a steadier stride she took a turn about the place. Putting out a hand, she touched first this object, then that.

"Furniture," she said at last. "Now on what floor is furniture sold?"

She did not know.

Coming at last to a great overstuffed davenport, she sat down upon it.

Feeling its drowsy comfort after her hot race, she was half tempted to stretch herself out upon it, to spread the splendid cape over her, and thus to spend the night.

"It won't do," she decided resolutely. "Every extra moment I spend here makes it worse."

At that she rose and looked about her. Over to the right was a broad stretch of pale light.

"It's the moonlight falling through the great skylight of the rotunda,"

she breathed.

Instantly she began making her way in that direction. Arrived at the railing, she looked down. She was high up. The very thought of the dizzy depth below made her feel faint; yet, fighting against this faintness, she persisted in looking down until she had established the fact that she was on the sixth floor. There remained then but to descend three flights of stairs to find the blessed third floor and, perhaps, Rennie.

She was not long in descending. Then, such a silent cry of joy as escaped her lips as she saw Rennie's light still dimly burning in the far corner.

Slipping on the cape, the better to hide the dust and dirt she had collected from many falls, she at last tiptoed up close to the desk where Rennie was working.

"h.e.l.lo, dearie," said Rennie, smiling up at her through her thick gla.s.ses. "Ready to go? In just one moment."

Lucile caught her breath in astonishment. Then the truth burst upon her.

The whole wild adventure through which she had been driven at lightning speed had consumed but half an hour. So intent upon her work had dear old Rennie been that she had not noted the pa.s.sing of time.

Some three minutes later, arm in arm, they were making their way down the dark and gloomy marble stairs; and a moment later, having safely pa.s.sed the guard, they were out on the deserted street.

The instant they pa.s.sed through the door they were caught in a great whirl of wind and snow that carried them half the way to State Street before they could check their mad gait. For Rennie, who was to take the surface line, this was well enough; but for Lucile it meant an additional half block of beating her way back to her station on the "L."

With a screamed "Good-night" that was caught up and carried away by the storm, she tore herself away and, bending low, leaped full into the teeth of the gale.

A royal battle ensued. The wind, seeming to redouble its fury at sight of a fresh victim, roared at her, tore at her, then turning and twisting, appeared to shake her as some low born parent shakes his child. Snow cut her face. The blue cape, wrapping about her more than once, tripped her for a near fall.

"But it's warm! Oh, so warm!" she breathed. Then, even in the midst of all this, she asked herself the meaning of all this strange mystery of the night, and, of a sudden, the sight of Laurie stepping into that tortuous chute flashed back upon the screen of her memory.

Stopping stock still to grasp a post of the elevated's steel frame, she steadied herself and tried to think. Should she turn back? Should she make one more attempt to rescue Laurie from whatever plight he may have gotten himself into?

For a moment, swaying like a dead leaf on a tree, she clung there.

"No! No!" she said at last, "I wouldn't go back there to-night! Not for worlds!" She made one desperate leap across the street and was the next moment beating her way up the steel stairway to the elevated.

Once aboard the well heated train, with the fur lined cape adding its cozy warmth to her chilled and weary body, she relaxed for the first time to think in a quiet way of the night's affair.

A careful review of events convinced her that she had behaved in quite a wild and insane manner at times, but that on the whole the outcome was quite satisfactory. Certainly she could not have been expected to return home without a wrap on a night such as this. Surely she had had nothing whatever to do with Laurie's giving away his pa.s.s-out, nor of his flinging himself so recklessly down the parcel chute. He was almost a stranger to her. Why, then, should she concern herself with the outcome of an affair which he had clearly entered into of his own free will?

On this last point she could not feel quite comfortable, but since the elevated train was hurling her homeward and since she could not, had she used her utmost will-power, have driven herself back into that great darkened store, and since there was no likelihood of her being admitted without a pa.s.s, she concluded that she must still be moving in the path of destiny.

In strange contrast to the wild whirling storm outside, she found her room a cozy nook of comfort. After throwing off her street clothes and going through a series of wild gymnastics that came very near to flying, she drew on her dream robe, threw a dressing gown across her shoulders then sank into a great overstuffed chair. There, curled up like a squirrel in a nest of leaves, she gave herself over to cozy comfort and to thoughts.

She had arrived at a very comforting one--which was that since she had worked until ten this night she need not report for duty until twelve the next day--when a spot of color caught her eye. A tiny flash of crimson shone out from a background of midnight blue. The midnight blue was the rare cape which she had hung against the wall.

"Wonder what that touch of scarlet means?" she whispered drowsily.

Immediately she thought of Hawthorne's "Scarlet Letter." She shuddered at the thought. She had dreamed bad dreams for weeks after reading that book.

Gathering up her robe, she sprang lightly from the chair to put out a hand and take up the folds of the cape.

"A thread," she mused, "a crimson thread!"

That the thread had not been accidentally caught up by the garment she saw at once. With a needle it had been pa.s.sed twice through the cloth, then tied in a loose knot. It was at the place on the cape that rested over one's heart.

"Now why would one wear such a curious ornament?" she asked herself while a puzzled look came on her face.

"The Scarlet Letter, a crimson thread across one's heart. How similar!

How very strange!" she mused. Again she shuddered. Was this some ominous omen?

With deft fingers she untied the knot, and drawing the thread free, carried it to her great chair where, intent upon examining the thread in detail, she again curled herself into a position of perfect comfort.

"Huh!" she exclaimed after a time. "Strange sort of thread! Looks like ordinary silk thread at first. About size 40 I'd say, but if you examine it closely you discover a strand of purple running through it, a very fine strand, but unmistakable, running from end to end. How very, very unusual."

"Anyway," she said slowly after another moment's thought, "the whole affair is dark, hidden, mysterious. And," she exclaimed, suddenly leaping from her chair and clasping her hands in ecstasy, "how I do adore a mystery. I'll solve it, too! See if I don't! And I must! I must! This cape is not mine. I cannot keep it. It is my duty to see that it is returned to the owner, whoever she is and whatever her motive for entering our store at that unearthly hour and for leaving her wrap instead of mine."

Drawing a needle from the cushion on her chifforobe, she threaded it with the crimson bit with its purple strand, then, after selecting the spot from which it had been taken, she drew it through the wonderful cloth twice and knotted it as it had been before.

"There," she breathed, "that's done. Now for bed."

Two thoughts pa.s.sed across her dreamy mind before she fell asleep: "I may sleep until ten. How perfectly gorgeous! The first person I shall look for when I enter the store will be Laurie Seymour. I wonder if I shall see him? How exciting. I wonder--"

In the midst of this last wonder she fell asleep.

CHAPTER III A NEW MYSTERY

It was a very satisfactory reflection that Lucile's mirror returned to her next morning at ten. After fifteen minutes of such gymnastics as even a girl can perform in her own room with the shades down, followed by five minutes of a cold shower, she stood there pink and glowing as a child.

The glow of health and joy remained on her cheeks even after her drab working dress had been drawn on. It was heightened by the half hiding of them in that matchless white fox collar. Almost instantly, however, a look of perplexity overspread her face as her eyes caught the reflection of a tiny spot of crimson against the darker color of the gorgeous cape which had so mysteriously come into her possession.

"The crimson thread," she whispered. "I do wonder what it could mean."

The elevated train whirled her swiftly to her place of toil.

To her vast relief, the first familiar figure to catch her eyes as she pa.s.sed between the tables of books in her own corner at the store was that of Laurie Seymour.