And Helen, too, sought for work, but failed to find it, and day by day their slender stock of money diminished, until at last they had eaten the last meal, and had no money wherewith to buy another.
That evening Helen left the house and was gone for a short while, and when she came back she did not say where she had been.
But she had gone with her shawl to a pawn-shop, and hid away in her dress was the pittance which had been loaned on it.
In the morning she stole out unheard, not long after daylight, and invested her capital in newspapers.
Her cheeks were flushed with shame as she stood on the street, offering her papers for sale. But she fought back her pride. They had been very kind to her, and she should be only too glad, she told herself, to make the sacrifice for their dear sakes.
And how happy she was when she hastened to their home, and put her morning's earnings into the hand of Mrs. Morris.
In vain Mat protested against Helen's selling papers. Let him do it, he said.
"It will need all we can both make to live and pay the rent," Helen quietly returned.
"But you must not go on the street to sell papers, Helen," protested Mat.
"I am young and can afford better to do this than that our good mother should work," said Helen, bravely, casting an affectionate glance toward Mrs. Morris.
And Mat said no more.
It was one day several weeks subsequent to the time when she first began selling papers, that a gentleman stopped to purchase a Herald of Helen.
He had paid for it in a mechanical way, and was turning away when he chanced to glance at the face of the newsgirl.
He started slightly, then cast a keen glance at her, paused, and then in a tone of assumed carelessness, asked:
"Haven't I seen you somewhere else, my girl? You have not always sold papers?"
"No, sir."
"Where can I have seen you?"
"I don't know, sir," was the only reply, for Helen did not care to talk to him.
But she saw that he was an elderly man, his hair was streaked with gray, and in clothing and manner he bore the impress of apparent respectability.
"What is your name?" he inquired.
"Helen."
"What!" with another start. "Your name is Helen, is it?" recovering himself. "Helen what, my girl?"
"Helen Morris," was the reply, for she had now for a long time used the name of her benefactors as her own.
Again the gentleman glanced keenly at her, and then moved away slowly, muttering to himself:
"Morris—Morris! I can't understand it. That likeness is wonderful, and cannot exist as a mere accident. I must investigate this, and I'd bet anything that that is not her name."
The gentleman entered a large building on Broadway, ascended in the elevator, and opened the door of an office, on which was lettered the legend:
"Joseph Brown,
Attorney at Law."
Having written a note, he dispatched his office boy with it to a liquor saloon, it being directed to James McGinnis, in care of the saloon's proprietor.
Late that afternoon a beetle-browed and forbidding-looking individual entered Brown's office.
"Well, I got your letter and I've come!" was the rather sullen salutation he gave Brown. "What's up now? Want to badger me again?"
"Don't talk to me in that manner!" said Brown, quietly, yet in a grim tone. "Remember that I saved your neck from a halter, which I can again put around it at any moment."
The man shuddered, and became meek as a lamb.
"What do you want?"
"That's better," and Brown smiled. "I don't want much of you just now," and then he sank his voice to a whisper.
"That's easy enough," McGinnis said, a few minutes later. "I can let you know to-morrow morning, I think."
"Very well."
When McGinnis put in an appearance the next morning, it was evident from his expression that he had been successful in the task required of him by Brown.
"I've found out that her name isn't Morris. That's the name of the people as she lives with. She's a kind of an adopted daughter, and they said as how her real name was Dilk, or something like that."
"Ha! I thought so," Brown exclaimed, inwardly. And then he bade McGinnis sit down, and for nearly half an hour they conversed in low tones.
Then Brown put a roll of bills into his confederate's hands, and the latter withdrew, saying:
"I'll do the job nately, and there'll be no trouble after it."
And that night Helen did not return home. Half-crazed with alarm, Mat and his mother awaited her coming until nine o'clock, or a little after, and then the young fellow could stand it no longer, but went in search of Helen.
He could not find her.
She did not return during the night, nor even the next day, nor when night again fell.
Mat had scoured the city for her, had visited the places where she usually sold papers, and had questioned all the boot-blacks and newsboys, but had only obtained the meager and unsatisfactory information from one little fellow that he had seen Helen in company with a man just after dusk.
She had disappeared completely, had vanished as utterly as a mist that is dissolved by the sun's warm rays.
"She is gone from us, mother," Mat at last said, in a choking voice. "You remember, mother, what Helen has told us—her impressions concerning her early childhood. And, mother, I believe there is money at the bottom of the thing, that Helen stood in somebody's way, and has been spirited off by this person's orders."
"It is possible."
"Possible! I feel it to be the truth. And I shall not rest night or day, mother, until I have found her. Good-bye, mother, for I am going. Heaven in mercy assist you and care for you until I can come back to do so. Good-bye!"
Mrs. Morris did not wish him to go, but she could not thwart him, for she knew how much he loved Helen. But her face was very pale and anguished as she saw him go.
CHAPTER III. SHADOW—WHO WAS HE?
Mat Morris was grimly in earnest in his determination to find the missing Helen.
He had no clew to follow, no starting-point from which to begin his search, but he would not permit himself to think about it in this light, for fear he would become discouraged.
Helen was alive—was somewhere—could be found—and must be found!
First of all, he paid a visit to police head-quarters, and described the man who had been seen with Helen, as the boy had described him.
From one detective to another he went, giving the description, and inquiring if any could say who tallied in appearance with it.
Among the others he came to me, but, like the others, I could not even guess who the person might be, so meager was the description.
I asked him if he intended turning detective himself.
"I do," he firmly said; "and I shall never give up until I have found her, and unearthed the rascal who has done this."
"Who is this 'her' you speak of?"
"A girl whom I love dearer than my life itself!" was the earnest reply—not given in a mawkish and