"Well, possibly some of the workmen might. Leave me your name
and I'll send you word if I get on his track."

He handed her a pencil, and she wrote down her address; then
she walked away blindly between the clocks.


XI


Mr. Loomis, true to his word, wrote a few days later that he
had enquired in vain in the work-shop for any news of Ramy; and as
she folded this letter and laid it between the leaves of her Bible,
Ann Eliza felt that her last hope was gone. Miss Mellins, of
course, had long since suggested the mediation of the police, and
cited from her favourite literature convincing instances of the
supernatural ability of the Pinkerton detective; but Mr. Hawkins,
when called in council, dashed this project by remarking that
detectives cost something like twenty dollars a day; and a vague
fear of the law, some half-formed vision of Evelina in the clutch
of a blue-coated "officer," kept Ann Eliza from invoking the aid of
the police.

After the arrival of Mr. Loomis's note the weeks followed each
other uneventfully. Ann Eliza's cough clung to her till late in
the spring, the reflection in her looking-glass grew more bent and
meagre, and her forehead sloped back farther toward the twist of
hair that was fastened above her parting by a comb of black India-
rubber.