IV
BY nine o'clock the next morning Wade was in possession of all the information to be obtained at the opera house. The box was rented by Miss M. F. Pearse, who lived a few doors from the Avenue on West Fifty-third Street. Wade made a note of the name and the house number, thanked his informant and went back to the hotel to consider his next step. Dave had intrusted himself to a hansom and had gone off down town to buy presents for Minnie and the children. So Wade had opportunity for undisturbed reflection. By noon he had smoked up a good deal of tobacco but had evolved no method of discovering the identity of the young lady save that of applying to Miss Pearse, and this morning, with the white light of a Winter day flooding the room, he realized the preposterousness of such a
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