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+**The Project Gutenberg Etext of Within the Law by Marvin Dana**
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+Within the Law
+
+by Marvin Dana
+
+From the play of Bayard Veiller
+
+May, 1997  [Etext #905]
+
+
+**The Project Gutenberg Etext of Within the Law by Marvin Dana**
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+
+WITHIN THE LAW
+BY
+MARVIN DANA
+
+FROM THE PLAY OF
+BAYARD VEILLER
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+CHAPTER
+I.     The Panel of Light
+II.    A Cheerful Prodigal
+III.   Only Three Years
+IV.    Kisses and Kleptomania
+V.     The Victim of the Law 
+VI.    Inferno
+VII.   Within the Law
+VIII.  A Tip from Headquarters 
+X.     A Legal Document
+X.     Marked Money
+XI.    The Thief
+XII.   A Bridegroom Spurned
+XIII.  The Advent of Griggs
+XIV.   A Wedding Announcement
+XV.    Aftermath of Tragedy
+XVI.   Burke Plots
+XVII.  Outside the Law 
+XVIII. The Noiseless Death 
+XIX.   Within the Toils
+XX.    Who Shot Griggs?
+XXI.   Aggie at Bay
+XXII.  The Trap That Failed
+XXIII. The Confession
+XXIV.  Anguish and Bliss
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. THE PANEL OF LIGHT 
+
+The lids of the girl's eyes lifted slowly, and she stared at the
+panel of light in the wall.  Just at the outset, the act of
+seeing made not the least impression on her numbed brain.  For a
+long time she continued to regard the dim illumination in the
+wall with the same passive fixity of gaze.  Apathy still lay upon
+her crushed spirit.  In a vague way, she realized her own
+inertness, and rested in it gratefully, subtly fearful lest she
+again arouse to the full horror of her plight.  In a curious
+subconscious fashion, she was striving to hold on to this
+deadness of sensation, thus to win a little respite from the
+torture that had exhausted her soul.
+
+Of a sudden, her eyes noted the black lines that lay across the
+panel of light.  And, in that instant, her spirit was quickened
+once again.  The clouds lifted from her brain.  Vision was clear
+now.  Understanding seized the full import of this hideous thing
+on which she looked.... For the panel of light was a window, set
+high within a wall of stone.  The rigid lines of black that
+crossed it were bars--prison bars.  It was still true, then: She
+was in a cell of the Tombs.
+
+The girl, crouching miserably on the narrow bed, maintained her
+fixed watching of the window--that window which was a symbol of
+her utter despair.  Again, agony wrenched within her.  She did
+not weep: long ago she had exhausted the relief of tears.  She
+did not pace to and fro in the comfort of physical movement with
+which the caged beast finds a mocking imitation of liberty: long
+ago, her physical vigors had been drained under stress of
+anguish.  Now, she was well-nigh incapable of any bodily
+activity.  There came not even so much as the feeblest moan from
+her lips.  The torment was far too racking for such futile
+fashion of lamentation.  She merely sat there in a posture of
+collapse. To all outward seeming, nerveless, emotionless, an
+abject creature.  Even the eyes, which held so fixedly their gaze
+on the window, were quite expressionless. Over them lay a film,
+like that which veils the eyes of some dead thing.  Only an
+occasional languid motion of the lids revealed the life that
+remained.
+
+So still the body.  Within the soul, fury raged uncontrolled. 
+For all the desolate calm of outer seeming, the tragedy of her
+fate was being acted with frightful vividness there in memory. 
+In that dreadful remembrance, her spirit was rent asunder anew by
+realization of that which had become her portion.... It was then,
+as once again the horrible injustice of her fate racked
+consciousness with its tortures, that the seeds of revolt were
+implanted in her heart.  The thought of revenge gave to her the
+first meager gleam of comfort that had lightened her moods
+through many miserable days and nights.  Those seeds of revolt
+were to be nourished well, were to grow into their flower--a
+poison flower, developed through the three years of convict life
+to which the judge had sentenced her.
+
+The girl was appalled by the mercilessness of a destiny that had
+so outraged right.  She was wholly innocent of having done any
+wrong.  She had struggled through years of privation to keep
+herself clean and wholesome, worthy of those gentlefolk from whom
+she drew her blood.  And earnest effort had ended at last under
+an overwhelming accusation--false, yet none the less fatal to
+her.  This accusation, after soul-wearying delays, had culminated
+to-day in conviction.  The sentence of the court had been imposed
+upon her: that for three years she should be imprisoned.... This,
+despite her innocence.  She had endured much--miserably
+much!--for honesty's sake.  There wrought the irony of fate.  She
+had endured bravely for honesty's sake.  And the end of it all
+was shame unutterable. There was nought left her save a wild
+dream of revenge against the world that had martyrized her. 
+"Vengeance is mine.  I will repay, saith the Lord."... The
+admonition could not touch her now.  Why should she care for the
+decrees of a God who had abandoned her!
+
+There had been nothing in the life of Mary Turner, before the
+catastrophe came, to distinguish it from many another.  Its most
+significant details were of a sordid kind, familiar to poverty. 
+Her father had been an unsuccessful man, as success is esteemed
+by this generation of Mammon-worshipers.  He was a gentleman, but
+the trivial fact is of small avail to-day.  He was of good birth,
+and he was the possessor of an inherited competence.  He had, as
+well, intelligence, but it was not of a financial sort.
+
+So, little by little, his fortune became shrunken toward
+nothingness, by reason of injudicious investments.  He married a
+charming woman, who, after a brief period of wedded happiness,
+gave her life to the birth of the single child of the union,
+Mary. Afterward, in his distress over this loss, Ray Turner
+seemed even more incompetent for the management of business
+affairs.  As the years passed, the daughter grew toward maturity
+in an experience of ever-increasing penury.  Nevertheless, there
+was no actual want of the necessities of life, though always a
+woful lack of its elegancies.  The girl was in the high-school,
+when her father finally gave over his rather feeble effort of
+living. Between parent and child, the intimacy had been unusually
+close.  At his death, the father left her a character well
+instructed in the excellent principles that had been his own. 
+That was his sole legacy to her.  Of worldly goods, not the value
+of a pin.
+
+Yet, measured according to the stern standards of adversity, Mary
+was fortunate.  Almost at once, she procured a humble employment
+in the Emporium, the great department store owned by Edward
+Gilder.  To be sure, the wage was infinitesimal, while the toil
+was body-breaking soul-breaking.  Still, the pittance could be
+made to sustain life, and Mary was blessed with both soul and
+body to sustain much.  So she merged herself in the army of
+workers--in the vast battalion of those that give their entire
+selves to a labor most stern and unremitting, and most ill
+rewarded.
+
+Mary, nevertheless, avoided the worst perils of her lot.  She did
+not flinch under privation, but went her way through it, if not
+serenely, at least without ever a thought of yielding to those
+temptations that beset a girl who is at once poor and charming. 
+Fortunately for her, those in closest authority over her were not
+so deeply smitten as to make obligatory on her a choice between
+complaisance and loss of position.  She knew of situations like
+that, the cul-de-sac of chastity, worse than any devised by a
+Javert.  In the store, such things were matters of course.  There
+is little innocence for the girl in the modern city.  There can
+be none for the worker thrown into the storm-center of a great
+commercial activity, humming with vicious gossip, all alive with
+quips from the worldly wise.  At the very outset of her
+employment, the sixteen-year-old girl learned that she might eke
+out the six dollars weekly by trading on her personal
+attractiveness to those of the opposite sex.  The idea was
+repugnant to her; not only from the maidenly instinct of purity,
+but also from the moral principles woven into her character by
+the teachings of a father wise in most things, though a fool in
+finance. Thus, she remained unsmirched, though well informed as
+to the verities of life.  She preferred purity and penury, rather
+than a slight pampering of the body to be bought by its
+degradation.  Among her fellows were some like herself; others,
+unlike.  Of her own sort, in this single particular, were the two
+girls with whom she shared a cheap room.  Their common decency in
+attitude toward the other sex was the unique bond of union. In
+their association, she found no real companionship. Nevertheless,
+they were wholesome enough.  Otherwise they were illiterate,
+altogether uncongenial.
+
+In such wise, through five dreary years, Mary Turner lived.  Nine
+hours daily, she stood behind a counter. She spent her other
+waking hours in obligatory menial labors: cooking her own scant
+meals over the gas; washing and ironing, for the sake of that
+neat appearance which was required of her by those in authority
+at the Emporium--yet, more especially, necessary for her own
+self-respect.  With a mind keen and earnest, she contrived some
+solace from reading and studying, since the free library gave her
+this opportunity.  So, though engaged in stultifying occupation
+through most of her hours, she was able to find food for mental
+growth. Even, in the last year, she had reached a point of
+development whereat she began to study seriously her own position
+in the world's economy, to meditate on a method of bettering it. 
+Under this impulse, hope mounted high in her heart.  Ambition was
+born.  By candid comparison of herself with others about her, she
+realized the fact that she possessed an intelligence beyond the
+average. The training by her father, too, had been of a superior
+kind.  There was as well, at the back vaguely, the feeling of
+particular self-respect that belongs inevitably to the possessor
+of good blood.  Finally, she demurely enjoyed a modest
+appreciation of her own physical advantages.  In short, she had
+beauty, brains and breeding.  Three things of chief importance to
+any woman--though there be many minds as to which may be chief
+among the three.
+
+I have said nothing specific thus far as to the outer being of
+Mary Turner--except as to filmed eyes and a huddled form.  But,
+in a happier situation, the girl were winning enough.  Indeed,
+more! She was one of those that possess an harmonious beauty,
+with, too, the penetrant charm that springs from the mind, with
+the added graces born of the spirit.  Just now, as she sat, a
+figure of desolation, there on the bed in the Tombs cell, it
+would have required a most analytical observer to determine the
+actualities of her loveliness.  Her form was disguised by the
+droop of exhaustion.  Her complexion showed the pallor of
+sorrowful vigils.  Her face was no more than a mask of misery. 
+Yet, the shrewd observer, if a lover of beauty, might have found
+much for delight, even despite the concealment imposed by her
+present condition.  Thus, the stormy glory of her dark hair,
+great masses that ran a riot of shining ripples and waves.  And
+the straight line of the nose, not too thin, yet fine enough for
+the rapture of a Praxiteles. And the pink daintiness of the
+ear-tips, which peered warmly from beneath the pall of tresses. 
+One could know nothing accurately of the complexion now. But it
+were easy to guess that in happier places it would show of a
+purity to entice, with a gentle blooming of roses in the cheeks. 
+Even in this hour of unmitigated evil, the lips revealed a
+curving beauty of red--not quite crimson, though near enough for
+the word; not quite scarlet either; only, a red gently
+enchanting, which turned one's thoughts toward tenderness--with a
+hint of desire.  It was, too, a generous mouth, not too large;
+still, happily, not so small as those modeled by Watteau. It was
+altogether winsome--more, it was generous and true, desirable for
+kisses--yes!--more desirable for strength and for faith.
+
+Like every intelligent woman, Mary had taken the trouble to
+reinforce the worth of her physical attractiveness. The instinct
+of sex was strong in her, as it must be in every normal woman,
+since that appeal is nature's law.  She kept herself supple and
+svelte by many exercises, at which her companions in the chamber
+scoffed, with the prudent warning that more work must mean more
+appetite.  With arms still aching from the lifting of heavy bolts
+of cloth to and fro from the shelves, she nevertheless was at
+pains nightly to brush with the appointed two hundred strokes the
+thick masses of her hair.  Even here, in the sordid desolation of
+the cell, the lustrous sheen witnessed the fidelity of her care. 
+So, in each detail of her, the keen observer might have found
+adequate reason for admiration. There was the delicacy of the
+hands, with fingers tapering, with nails perfectly shaped,
+neither too dull nor too shining.  And there were, too, finally,
+the trimly shod feet, set rather primly on the floor, small, and
+arched like those of a Spanish Infanta.  In truth, Mary Turner
+showed the possibilities at least, if not just now the realities,
+of a very beautiful woman.
+
+Naturally, in this period of grief, the girl's mind had no
+concern with such external merits over which once she had
+modestly exulted.  All her present energies were set to precise
+recollection of the ghastly experience into which she had been
+thrust.
+
+In its outline, the event had been tragically simple.
+
+There had been thefts in the store.  They had been traced
+eventually to a certain department, that in which Mary worked. 
+The detective was alert.  Some valuable silks were missed. 
+Search followed immediately.  The goods were found in Mary's
+locker.  That was enough. She was charged with the theft.  She
+protested innocence--only to be laughed at in derision by her
+accusers. Every thief declares innocence.  Mr. Gilder himself was
+emphatic against her.  The thieving had been long continued.  An
+example must be made.  The girl was arrested.
+
+The crowded condition of the court calendar kept her for three
+months in the Tombs, awaiting trial. She was quite friendless. 
+To the world, she was only a thief in duress.  At the last, the
+trial was very short. Her lawyer was merely an unfledged
+practitioner assigned to her defense as a formality of the court. 
+This novice in his profession was so grateful for the first
+recognition ever afforded him that he rather assisted than
+otherwise the District Attorney in the prosecution of the case.
+
+At the end, twelve good men and true rendered a verdict of guilty
+against the shuddering girl in the prisoner's dock.
+
+So simple the history of Mary Turner's trial.... The sentence of
+the judge was lenient--only three years!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. A CHEERFUL PRODIGAL. 
+
+That which was the supreme tragedy to the broken girl in the cell
+merely afforded rather agreeable entertainment to her former
+fellows of the department store. Mary Turner throughout her term
+of service there had been without real intimates, so that now
+none was ready to mourn over her fate.  Even the two room-mates
+had felt some slight offense, since they sensed the superiority
+of her, though vaguely.  Now, they found a smug satisfaction in
+the fact of her disaster as emphasizing very pleasurably their
+own continuance in respectability.
+
+As many a philosopher has observed, we secretly enjoy the
+misfortunes of others, particularly of our friends, since they
+are closest to us.  Most persons hasten to deny this truth in its
+application to themselves. They do so either because from lack of
+clear understanding they are not quite honest with themselves,
+from lack of clear introspection, or because, as may be more
+easily believed, they are not quite honest in the assertion. As a
+matter of fact, we do find a singular satisfaction in the
+troubles of others.  Contemplation of such suffering renders more
+striking the contrasted well-being of our own lot.  We need the
+pains of others to serve as background for our joys--just as sin
+is essential as the background for any appreciation of virtue,
+even any knowledge of its existence.... So now, on the day of
+Mary Turner's trial, there was a subtle gaiety of gossipings to
+and fro through the store.  The girl's plight was like a
+shuttlecock driven hither and yon by the battledores of many
+tongues.  It was the first time in many years that one of the
+employees had been thus accused of theft.  Shoplifters were so
+common as to be a stale topic.  There was a refreshing novelty in
+this case, where one of themselves was the culprit.  Her fellow
+workers chatted desultorily of her as they had opportunity, and
+complacently thanked their gods that they were not as she--with
+reason.  Perhaps, a very few were kindly hearted enough to feel a
+touch of sympathy for this ruin of a life.
+
+Of such was Smithson, a member of the executive staff, who did
+not hesitate to speak his mind, though none too forcibly.  As for
+that, Smithson, while the possessor of a dignity nourished by
+years of floor-walking, was not given to the holding of vigorous
+opinions. Yet, his comment, meager as it was, stood wholly in
+Mary's favor.  And he spoke with a certain authority, since he
+had given official attention to the girl.
+
+Smithson stopped Sarah Edwards, Mr. Gilder's private secretary,
+as she was passing through one of the departments that morning,
+to ask her if the owner had yet reached his office.
+
+"Been and gone," was the secretary's answer, with the terseness
+characteristic of her.
+
+"Gone!" Smithson repeated, evidently somewhat disturbed by the
+information.  "I particularly wanted to see him."
+
+"He'll be back, all right," Sarah vouchsafed, amiably. "He went
+down-town, to the Court of General Sessions. The judge sent for
+him about the Mary Turner case."
+
+"Oh, yes, I remember now," Smithson exclaimed. Then he added,
+with a trace of genuine feeling, "I hope the poor girl gets off. 
+She was a nice girl--quite the lady, you know, Miss Edwards."
+
+"No, I don't know," Sarah rejoined, a bit tartly. Truth to tell,
+the secretary was haunted by a grim suspicion that she herself
+was not quite the lady of her dreams, and never would be able to
+acquire the graces of the Vere De Vere.  For Sarah, while a most
+efficient secretary, was not in her person of that slender
+elegance which always characterized her favorite heroines in the
+novels she affected.  On the contrary, she was of a sort to have
+gratified Byron, who declared that a woman in her maturity should
+be plump.  Now, she recalled with a twinge of envy that the
+accused girl had been of an aristocratic slimness of form.  "Oh,
+did you know her?"  she questioned, without any real interest.
+
+Smithson answered with that bland stateliness of manner which was
+the fruit of floor-walking politeness.
+
+"Well, I couldn't exactly say I knew her, and yet I might say,
+after a manner of speaking, that I did--to a certain extent.  You
+see, they put her in my department when she first came here to
+work.  She was a good saleswoman, as saleswomen go.  For the
+matter of that," he added with a sudden access of energy, "she
+was the last girl in the world I'd take for a thief."  He
+displayed some evidences of embarrassment over the honest feeling
+into which he had been betrayed, and made haste to recover his
+usual business manner, as he continued formally.  "Will you
+please let me know when Mr. Gilder arrives?  There are one or two
+little matters I wish to discuss with him."
+
+"All right!" Sarah agreed briskly, and she hurried on toward the
+private office.
+
+The secretary was barely seated at her desk when the violent
+opening of the door startled her, and, as she looked up, a cheery
+voice cried out:
+
+"Hello, Dad!" 
+
+At the same moment, a young man entered, with an air of care-free
+assurance, his face radiant.  But, as his glance went to the
+empty arm-chair at the desk, he halted abruptly, and his
+expression changed to one of disappointment.
+
+"Not here!" he grumbled.  Then, once again the smile was on his
+lips as his eyes fell on the secretary, who had now risen to her
+feet in a flutter of excitement.
+
+"Why, Mr. Dick!" Sarah gasped.
+
+"Hello, Sadie!" came the genial salutation.  The young man
+advanced and shook hands with her warmly. "I'm home again. 
+Where's Dad?" 
+
+Even as he asked the question, the quick sobering of his face
+bore witness to his disappointment over not finding his father in
+the office.  For such was the relationship of the owner of the
+department store to this new arrival on the scene.  And in the
+patent chagrin under which the son now labored was to be found a
+certain indication of character not to be disregarded.  Unlike
+many a child, he really loved his father.  The death of the
+mother years before had left him without other opportunity for
+affection in the home, since he had neither brother nor sister. 
+He loved his father with a depth of feeling that made between the
+two a real camaraderie, despite great differences in temperament.
+In that simple and sincere regard which he bore for his father,
+the boy revealed a heart ready for love, willing to give of
+itself its best for the one beloved.  Beyond that, as yet, there
+was little to be said of him with exactness.  He was a spoiled
+child of fortune, if you wish to have it so.  Certainly, he was
+only a drone in the world's hive.  Thus far, he had enjoyed the
+good things of life, without ever doing aught to deserve them by
+contributing in return--save by his smiles and his genial air of
+happiness.
+
+In the twenty-three years of his life, every gift that money
+could lavish had been his.  If the sum total of benefit was
+small, at least there remained the consoling fact that the harm
+was even less.  Luxury had not sapped the strength of him.  He
+had not grown vicious, as have so many of his fellows among the
+sons of the rich.  Some instinct held him aloof from the grosser
+vices.  His were the trifling faults that had their origin
+chiefly in the joy of life, which manifest occasionally in
+riotous extravagancies, of a sort actually to harm none, however
+absurd and useless they may be.
+
+So much one might see by a glance into the face.  He was well
+groomed, of course; healthy, all a-tingle with vitality.  And in
+the clear eyes, which avoided no man's gaze, nor sought any
+woman's unseemly, there showed a soul untainted, not yet
+developed, not yet debased. Through all his days, Dick Gilder had
+walked gladly, in the content that springs to the call of one
+possessed of a capacity for enjoyment; possessed, too, of every
+means for the gratification of desire.  As yet, the man of him
+was unrevealed in its integrity.  No test had been put upon him. 
+The fires of suffering had not tried the dross of him.  What real
+worth might lie under this sunny surface the future must
+determine.  There showed now only this one significant fact:
+that, in the first moment of his return from journeyings abroad,
+he sought his father with all eagerness, and was sorely grieved
+because the meeting must still be delayed.  It was a little
+thing, perhaps.  Yet, it was capable of meaning much concerning
+the nature of the lad.  It revealed surely a tender heart, one
+responsive to a pure love. And to one of his class, there are
+many forces ever present to atrophy such simple, wholesome power
+of loving. The ability to love cleanly and absolutely is the
+supreme virtue.
+
+Sarah explained that Mr. Gilder had been called to the Court of
+General Sessions by the judge.
+
+Dick interrupted her with a gust of laughter.
+
+"What's Dad been doing now?"  he demanded, his eyes twinkling. 
+Then, a reminiscent grin shaped itself on his lips.  "Remember
+the time that fresh cop arrested him for speeding?  Wasn't he
+wild?  I thought he would have the whole police force
+discharged."  He smiled again.  "The trouble is," he declared
+sedately, "that sort of thing requires practice.  Now, when I'm
+arrested for speeding, I'm not in the least flustered--oh, not a
+little bit! But poor Dad! That one experience of his almost
+soured his whole life.  It was near the death of him--also, of
+the city's finest."
+
+By this time, the secretary had regained her usual poise, which
+had been somewhat disturbed by the irruption of the young man. 
+Her round face shone delightedly as she regarded him.  There was
+a maternal note of rebuke in her voice as she spoke:
+
+"Why, we didn't expect you back for two or three months yet."
+
+Once again, Dick laughed, with an infectious gaiety that brought
+a smile of response to the secretary's lips.
+
+"Sadie," he explained confidentially, "don't you dare ever to let
+the old man know.  He would be all swollen up.  It's bad to let a
+parent swell up.  But the truth is, Sadie, I got kind of homesick
+for Dad--yes, just that!" He spoke the words with a sort of
+shamefaced wonder. It is not easy for an Anglo-Saxon to confess
+the realities of affection in vital intimacies.  He repeated the
+phrase in a curiously appreciative hesitation, as one astounded
+by his own emotion.  "Yes, homesick for Dad!" 
+
+Then, to cover an excess of sincere feeling, he continued, with a
+burst of laughter:
+
+"Besides, Sadie, I was broke."
+
+The secretary sniffed.
+
+"The cable would have handled that end of it, I guess," she said,
+succinctly.
+
+There was no word of contradiction from Dick, who, from ample
+experience, knew that any demand for funds would have received
+answer from the father.
+
+"But what is Dad doing in court?"  he demanded.
+
+Sarah explained the matter with her usual conciseness:
+
+"One of the girls was arrested for stealing."
+
+The nature of the son was shown then clearly in one of its best
+aspects.  At once, he exhibited his instinct toward the quality
+of mercy, and, too, his trust in the father whom he loved, by his
+eager comment.
+
+"And Dad went to court to get her out of the scrape. That's just
+like the old man!" 
+
+Sarah, however, showed no hint of enthusiasm.  Her mind was ever
+of the prosaic sort, little prone to flights. In that prosaic
+quality, was to be found the explanation of her dependability as
+a private secretary.  So, now, she merely made a terse statement.
+
+"She was tried to-day, and convicted.  The judge sent for Mr.
+Gilder to come down this morning and have a talk with him about
+the sentence."
+
+There was no lessening of the expression of certainty on the
+young man's face.  He loved his father, and he trusted where he
+loved.
+
+"It will be all right," he declared, in a tone of entire
+conviction.  "Dad's heart is as big as a barrel.  He'll get her
+off."
+
+Then, of a sudden, Dick gave a violent start.  He added a
+convincing groan.
+
+"Oh, Lord!" he exclaimed, dismally.  There was shame in his
+voice.  "I forgot all about it!" 
+
+The secretary regarded him with an expression of amazement.
+
+"All about what?"  she questioned.
+
+Dick assumed an air vastly more confidential than at any time
+hitherto.  He leaned toward the secretary's desk, and spoke with
+a new seriousness of manner:
+
+"Sadie, have you any money?  I'm broker My taxi' has been waiting
+outside all this time."
+
+"Why, yes," the secretary said, cheerfully.  "If you will----"
+
+Dick was discreet enough to turn his attention to a picture on
+the wall opposite while Sarah went through those acrobatic
+performances obligatory on women who take no chances of losing
+money by carrying it in purses.
+
+"There!" she called after a few panting seconds, and exhibited a
+flushed face.
+
+Dick turned eagerly and seized the banknote offered him.
+
+"Mighty much obliged, Sadie," he said, enthusiastically. "But I
+must run.  Otherwise, this wouldn't be enough for the fare!" And,
+so saying, he darted out of the room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. ONLY THREE YEARS. 
+
+When, at last, the owner of the store entered the office, his
+face showed extreme irritation.  He did not vouchsafe any
+greeting to the secretary, who regarded him with an accurate
+perception of his mood.  With a diplomacy born of long
+experience, in her first speech Sarah afforded an agreeable
+diversion to her employer's line of thought.
+
+"Mr. Hastings, of the Empire store, called you up, Mr. Gilder,
+and asked me to let him know when you returned.  Shall I get him
+on the wire?" 
+
+The man's face lightened instantly, and there was even the
+beginning of a smile on his lips as he seated himself at the
+great mahogany desk.
+
+"Yes, yes!" he exclaimed, with evident enthusiasm. The smile grew
+in the short interval before the connection was made.  When,
+finally, he addressed his friend over the telephone, his tones
+were of the cheerfulest.
+
+"Oh, good morning.  Yes, certainly.  Four will suit me
+admirably.... Sunday?  Yes, if you like.  We can go out after
+church, and have luncheon at the country club."  After listening
+a moment, he laughed in a pleased fashion that had in it a
+suggestion of conscious superiority.  "My dear fellow," he
+declared briskly, "you couldn't beat me in a thousand years. 
+Why, I made the eighteen holes in ninety-two only last week."  He
+laughed again at the answer over the wire, then hung up the
+receiver and pushed the telephone aside, as he turned his
+attention to the papers neatly arranged on the desk ready to his
+hand.
+
+The curiosity of the secretary could not be longer delayed.
+
+"What did they do with the Turner girl?"  she inquired in an
+elaborately casual manner.
+
+Gilder did not look up from the heap of papers, but answered
+rather harshly, while once again his expression grew forbidding.
+
+"I don't know--I couldn't wait," he said.  He made a petulant
+gesture as he went on: "I don't see why Judge Lawlor bothered me
+about the matter.  He is the one to impose sentence, not I.  I am
+hours behind with my work now."
+
+For a few minutes he gave himself up to the routine of business,
+distributing the correspondence and other various papers for the
+action of subordinates, and speaking his orders occasionally to
+the attentive secretary with a quickness and precision that
+proclaimed the capable executive.  The observer would have
+realized at once that here was a man obviously fitted to the
+control of large affairs.  The ability that marches inevitably to
+success showed unmistakably in the face and form, and in the
+fashion of speech.  Edward Gilder was a big man physically,
+plainly the possessor of that abundant vital energy which is a
+prime requisite for achievement in the ordering of modern
+business concerns.  Force was, indeed, the dominant quality of
+the man.  His tall figure was proportionately broad, and he was
+heavily fleshed.  In fact, the body was too ponderous.  Perhaps,
+in that characteristic might be found a clue to the chief fault
+in his nature.  For he was ponderous, spiritually and mentally,
+as well as materially.  The fact was displayed suggestively in
+the face, which was too heavy with its prominent jowls and
+aggressive chin and rather bulbous nose.  But there was nothing
+flabby anywhere. The ample features showed no trace of weakness,
+only a rude, abounding strength.  There was no lighter touch
+anywhere.  Evidently a just man according to his own ideas, yet
+never one to temper justice with mercy.  He appeared, and was, a
+very practical and most prosaic business man.  He was not given
+to a humorous outlook on life.  He took it and himself with the
+utmost seriousness. He was almost entirely lacking in
+imagination, that faculty which is essential to sympathy.
+
+"Take this," he directed presently, when he had disposed of the
+matters before him.  Forthwith, he dictated the following letter,
+and now his voice took on a more unctuous note, as of one who is
+appreciative of his own excellent generosity.
+
+"THE EDITOR,
+
+"The New York Herald.
+
+"DEAR SIR: Inclosed please find my check for a thousand dollars
+for your free-ice fund.  It is going to be a very hard summer for
+the poor, and I hope by thus starting the contributions for your
+fine charity at this early day that you will be able to
+accomplish even more good than usually.                         
+"Very truly yours."  
+
+He turned an inquiring glance toward Sarah.
+
+"That's what I usually give, isn't it?" 
+
+The secretary nodded energetically.
+
+"Yes," she agreed in her brisk manner, "that's what you have
+given every year for the last ten years."
+
+The statement impressed Gilder pleasantly.  His voice was more
+mellow as he made comment.  His heavy face was radiant, and he
+smiled complacently.
+
+"Ten thousand dollars to this one charity alone!" he exclaimed. 
+"Well, it is pleasant to be able to help those less fortunate
+than ourselves."  He paused, evidently expectant of laudatory
+corroboration from the secretary.
+
+But Sarah, though she could be tactful enough on occasion, did
+not choose to meet her employer's anticipations just now.  For
+that matter, her intimate services permitted on her part some
+degree of familiarity with the august head of the establishment. 
+Besides, she did not stand in awe of Gilder, as did the others in
+his service. No man is a hero to his valet, or to his secretary.
+Intimate association is hostile to hero-worship.  So, now, Sarah
+spoke nonchalantly, to the indignation of the philanthropist:
+
+"Oh, yes, sir.  Specially when you make so much that you don't
+miss it."
+
+Gilder's thick gray brows drew down in a frown of displeasure,
+while his eyes opened slightly in sheer surprise over the
+secretary's unexpected remark.  He hesitated for only an instant
+before replying with an air of great dignity, in which was a
+distinct note of rebuke for the girl's presumption.
+
+"The profits from my store are large, I admit, Sarah. But I
+neither smuggle my goods, take rebates from railroads, conspire
+against small competitors, nor do any of the dishonest acts that
+disgrace other lines of business. So long as I make my profits
+honestly, I am honestly entitled to them, no matter how big they
+are."
+
+The secretary, being quite content with the havoc she had wrought
+in her employer's complacency over his charitableness, nodded,
+and contented herself with a demure assent to his outburst.
+
+"Yes, sir," she agreed, very meekly.
+
+Gilder stared at her for a few seconds, somewhat indignantly. 
+Then, he bethought himself of a subtle form of rebuke by
+emphasizing his generosity.
+
+"Have the cashier send my usual five hundred to the Charities
+Organization Society," he ordered.  With this new evidence of his
+generous virtue, the frown passed from his brows.  If, for a
+fleeting moment, doubt had assailed him under the spur of the
+secretary's words, that doubt had now vanished under his habitual
+conviction as to his sterling worth to the world at large.
+
+It was, therefore, with his accustomed blandness of manner that
+he presently acknowledged the greeting of George Demarest, the
+chief of the legal staff that looked after the firm's affairs. 
+He was aware without being told that the lawyer had called to
+acquaint him with the issue in the trial of Mary Turner.
+
+"Well, Demarest?"  he inquired, as the dapper attorney advanced
+into the room at a rapid pace, and came to a halt facing the
+desk, after a lively nod in the direction of the secretary.
+
+The lawyer's face sobered, and his tone as he answered was tinged
+with constraint.
+
+"Judge Lawlor gave her three years," he replied, gravely.  It was
+plain from his manner that he did not altogether approve.
+
+But Gilder was unaffected by the attorney's lack of satisfaction
+over the result.  On the contrary, he smiled exultantly.  His
+oritund voice took on a deeper note, as he turned toward the
+secretary.
+
+"Good!" he exclaimed.  "Take this, Sarah."  And he continued, as
+the girl opened her notebook and poised the pencil: "Be sure to
+have Smithson post a copy of it conspicuously in all the girls'
+dressing-rooms, and in the reading-room, and in the lunch-rooms,
+and in the assembly-room."  He cleared his throat ostentatiously
+and proceeded to the dictation of the notice:
+
+"Mary Turner, formerly employed in this store, was to-day
+sentenced to prison for three years, having been convicted for
+the theft of goods valued at over four hundred dollars.  The
+management wishes again to draw attention on the part of its
+employees to the fact that honesty is always the best policy....
+Got that?" 
+
+"Yes, sir."  The secretary's voice was mechanical, without any
+trace of feeling.  She was not minded to disturb her employer a
+second time this morning by injudicious comment.
+
+"Take it to Smithson," Gilder continued, "and tell him that I
+wish him to attend to its being posted according to my directions
+at once."
+
+Again, the girl made her formal response in the affirmative, then
+left the room.
+
+Gilder brought forth a box of cigars from a drawer of the desk,
+opened it and thrust it toward the waiting lawyer, who, however,
+shook his head in refusal, and continued to move about the room
+rather restlessly. Demarest paid no attention to the other's
+invitation to a seat, but the courtesy was perfunctory on
+Gilder's part, and he hardly perceived the perturbation of his
+caller, for he was occupied in selecting and lighting a cigar
+with the care of a connoisseur.  Finally, he spoke again, and now
+there was an infinite contentment in the rich voice.
+
+"Three years--three years! That ought to be a warning to the rest
+of the girls."  He looked toward Demarest for acquiescence.
+
+The lawyer's brows were knit as he faced the proprietor of the
+store.
+
+"Funny thing, this case!" he ejaculated.  "In some features, one
+of the most unusual I have seen since I have been practicing
+law."
+
+The smug contentment abode still on Gilder's face as he puffed in
+leisurely ease on his cigar and uttered a trite condolence.
+
+"Very sad!--quite so! Very sad case, I call it."  Demarest went
+on speaking, with a show of feeling: "Most unusual case, in my
+estimation.  You see, the girl keeps on declaring her innocence. 
+That, of course, is common enough in a way.  But here, it's
+different. The point is, somehow, she makes her protestations
+more convincing than they usually do.  They ring true, as it
+seems to me."
+
+Gilder smiled tolerantly.
+
+"They didn't ring very true to the jury, it would seem," he
+retorted.  And his voice was tart as he added: "Nor to the judge,
+since he deemed it his duty to give her three years."
+
+"Some persons are not very sensitive to impressions in such
+cases, I admit," Demarest returned, coolly.  If he meant any
+subtlety of allusion to his hearer, it failed wholly to pierce
+the armor of complacency.
+
+"The stolen goods were found in her locker," Gilder declared in a
+tone of finality.  "Some of them, I have been given to
+understand, were actually in the pocket of her coat."
+
+"Well," the attorney said with a smile, "that sort of thing makes
+good-enough circumstantial evidence, and without circumstantial
+evidence there would be few convictions for crime.  Yet, as a
+lawyer, I'm free to admit that circumstantial evidence alone is
+never quite safe as proof of guilt.  Naturally, she says some one
+else must have put the stolen goods there.  As a matter of exact
+reasoning, that is quite within the measure of possibility. That
+sort of thing has been done countless times."
+
+Gilder sniffed indignantly.
+
+"And for what reason?"  he demanded.  "It's too absurd to think
+about."
+
+"In similar cases," the lawyer answered, "those actually guilty
+of the thefts have thus sought to throw suspicion on the innocent
+in order to avoid it on themselves when the pursuit got too hot
+on their trail.  Sometimes, too, such evidence has been
+manufactured merely to satisfy a spite against the one unjustly
+accused."
+
+"It's too absurd to think about," Gilder repeated, impatiently. 
+"The judge and the jury found no fault with the evidence."
+
+Demarest realized that this advocacy in behalf of the girl was
+hardly fitting on the part of the legal representative of the
+store she was supposed to have robbed, so he abruptly changed his
+line of argument.
+
+"She says that her record of five years in your employ ought to
+count something in her favor."
+
+Gilder, however, was not disposed to be sympathetic as to a
+matter so flagrantly opposed to his interests.
+
+"A court of justice has decreed her guilty," he asserted once
+again, in his ponderous manner.  His emphasis indicated that
+there the affair ended.
+
+Demarest smiled cynically as he strode to and fro.
+
+"Nowadays," he shot out, "we don't call them courts of justice:
+we call them courts of law."
+
+Gilder yielded only a rather dubious smile over the quip.  This
+much he felt that he could afford, since those same courts served
+his personal purposes well in deed.
+
+"Anyway," he declared, becoming genial again, "it's out of our
+hands.  There's nothing we can do, now."
+
+"Why, as to that," the lawyer replied, with a hint of hesitation,
+"I am not so sure.  You see, the fact of the matter is that,
+though I helped to prosecute the case, I am not a little bit
+proud of the verdict."
+
+Gilder raised his eyebrows in unfeigned astonishment. Even yet,
+he was quite without appreciation of the attorney's feeling in
+reference to the conduct of the case.
+
+"Why?"  he questioned, sharply.
+
+"Because," the lawyer said, again halting directly before the
+desk, "in spite of all the evidence against her, I am not sure
+that Mary Turner is guilty--far from it, in fact!" 
+
+Gilder uttered an ejaculation of contempt, but Demarest went on
+resolutely.
+
+"Anyhow," he explained, "the girl wants to see you, and I wish to
+urge you to grant her an interview."
+
+Gilder flared at this suggestion, and scowled wrathfully on the
+lawyer, who, perhaps with professional prudence, had turned away
+in his rapid pacing of the room.
+
+"What's the use?"  Gilder stormed.  A latent hardness revealed
+itself at the prospect of such a visitation. And along with this
+hardness came another singular revelation of the nature of the
+man.  For there was consternation in his voice, as he continued
+in vehement expostulation against the idea.  If there was
+harshness in his attitude there was, too, a fugitive suggestion
+of tenderness alarmed over the prospect of undergoing such an
+interview with a woman.
+
+"I can't have her crying all over the office and begging for
+mercy," he protested, truculently.  But a note of fear lay under
+the petulance.
+
+Demarest's answer was given with assurance"
+
+"You are mistaken about that.  The girl doesn't beg for mercy. 
+In fact, that's the whole point of the matter. She demands
+justice--strange as that may seem, in a court of law!--and
+nothing else.  The truth is, she's a very unusual girl, a long
+way beyond the ordinary sales-girl, both in brains and in
+education."
+
+"The less reason, then, for her being a thief," Gilder grumbled
+in his heaviest voice.
+
+"And perhaps the less reason for believing her to be a thief,"
+the lawyer retorted, suavely.  He paused for a moment, then went
+on.  There was a tone of sincere determination in his voice. 
+"Just before the judge imposed sentence, he asked her if she had
+anything to say. You know, it's just a usual form--a thing that
+rarely means much of anything.  But this case was different, let
+me tell you.  She surprised us all by answering at once that she
+had.  It's really a pity, Gilder, that you didn't wait.  Why,
+that poor girl made a--damn--fine speech!" 
+
+The lawyer's forensic aspirations showed in his honest
+appreciation of the effectiveness of such oratory from the heart
+as he had heard in the courtroom that day.
+
+"Pooh! pooh!" came the querulous objection.  "She seems to have
+hypnotized you."  Then, as a new thought came to the magnate, he
+spoke with a trace of anxiety. There were always the reporters,
+looking for space to fill with foolish vaporings.
+
+"Did she say anything against me, or the store?" 
+
+"Not a word," the lawyer replied, gravely.  His smile of
+appreciation was discreetly secret.  "She merely told us how her
+father died when she was sixteen years old.  She was compelled
+after that to earn her own living.  Then she told how she had
+worked for you for five years steadily, without there ever being
+a single thing against her.  She said, too, that she had never
+seen the things found in her locker.  And she said more than
+that! She asked the judge if he himself understood what it means
+for a girl to be sentenced to prison for something she hadn't
+done.  Somehow, Gilder, the way she talked had its effect on
+everybody in the courtroom. I know! It's my business to
+understand things like that.  And what she said rang true.  What
+she said, and the way she said it, take brains and courage.  The
+ordinary crook has neither.  So, I had a suspicion that she might
+be speaking the truth.  You see, Gilder, it all rang true! And
+it's my business to know how things ring in that way."  There was
+a little pause, while the lawyer moved back and forth nervously. 
+Then, he added: "I believe Lawlor would have suspended sentence
+if it hadn't been for your talk with him."
+
+There were not wanting signs that Gilder was impressed. But the
+gentler fibers of the man were atrophied by the habits of a
+lifetime.  What heart he had once possessed had been buried in
+the grave of his young wife, to be resurrected only for his son. 
+In most things, he was consistently a hard man.  Since he had no
+imagination, he could have no real sympathy.
+
+He whirled about in his swivel chair, and blew a cloud of smoke
+from his mouth.  When he spoke, his voice was deeply resonant.
+
+"I simply did my duty," he said.  "You are aware that I did not
+seek any consultation with Judge Lawlor. He sent for me, and
+asked me what I thought about the case--whether I thought it
+would be right to let the girl go on a suspended sentence.  I
+told him frankly that I believed that an example should be made
+of her, for the sake of others who might be tempted to steal. 
+Property has some rights, Demarest, although it seems to be
+getting nowadays so that anybody is likely to deny it."  Then the
+fretful, half-alarmed note sounded in his voice again, as he
+continued: "I can't understand why the girl wants to see me."
+
+The lawyer smiled dryly, since he had his back turned at the
+moment.
+
+"Why," he vouchsafed, "she just said that, if you would see her
+for ten minutes, she would tell you how to stop the thefts in
+this store."
+
+Gilder displayed signs of triumph.  He brought his chair to a
+level and pounded the desk with a weighty fist.
+
+"There!" he cried.  "I knew it.  The girl wants to confess. 
+Well, it's the first sign of decent feeling she's shown.  I
+suppose it ought to be encouraged.  Probably there have been
+others mixed up in this."
+
+Demarest attempted no denial.
+
+"Perhaps," he admitted, though he spoke altogether without
+conviction.  "But," he continued insinuatingly, "at least it can
+do no harm if you see her.  I thought you would be willing, so I
+spoke to the District Attorney, and he has given orders to bring
+her here for a few minutes on the way to the Grand Central
+Station. They're taking her up to Burnsing, you know.  I wish,
+Gilder, you would have a little talk with her.  No harm in that!"
+With the saying, the lawyer abruptly went out of the office,
+leaving the owner of the store fuming.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. KISSES AND KLEPTOMANIA. 
+
+"Hello, Dad!" 
+
+After the attorney's departure, Gilder had been rather fussily
+going over some of the papers on his desk.  He was experiencing a
+vague feeling of injury on account of the lawyer's ill-veiled
+efforts to arouse his sympathy in behalf of the accused girl.  In
+the instinct of strengthening himself against the possibility of
+yielding to what he deemed weakness, the magnate rehearsed the
+facts that justified his intolerance, and, indeed, soon came to
+gloating over the admirable manner in which righteousness thrives
+in the world.  And it was then that an interruption came in the
+utterance of two words, words of affection, of love, cried out in
+the one voice he most longed to hear--for the voice was that of
+his son.  Yet, he did not look up.  The thing was altogether
+impossible! The boy was philandering, junketing, somewhere on the
+Riviera.  His first intimation as to the exact place would come
+in the form of a cable asking for money.  Somehow, his feelings
+had been unduly stirred that morning; he had grown sentimental,
+dreaming of pleasant things.... All this in a second.  Then, he
+looked up.  Why, it was true! It was Dick's face there, smiling
+in the doorway.  Yes, it was Dick, it was Dick himself! Gilder
+sprang to his feet, his face suddenly grown younger, radiant.
+
+"Dick!" The big voice was softened to exquisite tenderness.
+
+As the eyes of the two met, the boy rushed forward, and in the
+next moment the hands of father and son clasped firmly.  They
+were silent in the first emotion of their greeting.  Presently,
+Gilder spoke, with an effort toward harshness in his voice to
+mask how much he was shaken.  But the tones rang more kindly than
+any he had used for many a day, tremulous with affection.
+
+"What brought you back?"  he demanded.
+
+Dick, too, had felt the tension of an emotion far beyond that of
+the usual things.  He was forced to clear his throat before he
+answered with that assumption of nonchalance which he regarded as
+befitting the occasion.
+
+"Why, I just wanted to come back home," he said; lightly.  A
+sudden recollection came to give him poise in this time of
+emotional disturbance, and he added hastily: "And, for the love
+of heaven, give Sadie five dollars. I borrowed it from her to pay
+the taxi'.  You see, Dad, I'm broke."
+
+"Of course!" With the saying, Edward Gilder roared Gargantuan
+laughter.  In the burst of merriment, his pent feelings found
+their vent.  He was still chuckling when he spoke, sage from much
+experience of ocean travel.  "Poker on the ship, I suppose."
+
+The young man, too, smiled reminiscently as he answered:
+
+"No, not that, though I did have a little run in at Monte Carlo. 
+But it was the ship that finished me, at that.  You see, Dad,
+they hired Captain Kidd and a bunch of pirates as stewards, and
+what they did to little Richard was something fierce.  And yet,
+that wasn't the real trouble, either.  The fact is, I just
+naturally went broke.  Not a hard thing to do on the other side."
+
+"Nor on this," the father interjected, dryly.
+
+"Anyhow, it doesn't matter much," Dick replied, quite unabashed. 
+"Tell me, Dad, how goes it?" 
+
+Gilder settled himself again in his chair, and gazed benignantly
+on his son.
+
+"Pretty well," he said contentedly; "pretty well, son.  I'm glad
+to see you home again, my boy."  There was a great tenderness in
+the usually rather cold gray eyes.
+
+The young man answered promptly, with delight in his manner of
+speech, and a sincerity that revealed the underlying merit of his
+nature.
+
+"And I'm glad to be home, Dad, to be"--there was again that
+clearing of the throat, but he finished bravely--"with you."
+
+The father avoided a threatening display of emotion by an abrupt
+change of subject to the trite.
+
+"Have a good time?"  he inquired casually, while fumbling with
+the papers on the desk.
+
+Dick's face broke in a smile of reminiscent happiness.
+
+"The time of my young life!" He paused, and the smile broadened. 
+There was a mighty enthusiasm in his voice as he continued: "I
+tell you, Dad, it's a fact that I did almost break the bank at
+Monte Carlo.  I'd have done it sure, if only my money had held
+out."
+
+"It seems to me that I've heard something of the sort before,"
+was Gilder's caustic comment.  But his smile was still wholly
+sympathetic.  He took a curious vicarious delight in the
+escapades of his son, probably because he himself had committed
+no follies in his callow days.  "Why didn't you cable me?"  he
+asked, puzzled at such restraint on the part of his son.
+
+Dick answered with simple sincerity.
+
+"Because it gave me a capital excuse for coming home."
+
+It was Sarah who afforded a diversion.  She had known Dick while
+he was yet a child, had bought him candy, had felt toward him a
+maternal liking that increased rather than diminished as he grew
+to manhood. Now, her face lighted at sight of him, and she smiled
+a welcome.
+
+"I see you have found him," she said, with a ripple of laughter.
+
+Dick welcomed this interruption of the graver mood.
+
+"Sadie," he said, with a manner of the utmost seriousness, "you
+are looking finer than ever.  And how thin you have grown!" 
+
+The girl, eager with fond fancies toward the slender ideal,
+accepted the compliment literally.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Dick!" she exclaimed, rapturously.  "How much do you
+think I have lost?" 
+
+The whimsical heir of the house of Gilder surveyed his victim
+critically, then spoke with judicial solemnity.
+
+"About two ounces, Sadie."
+
+There came a look of deep hurt on Sadie's face at the flippant
+jest, which Dick himself was quick to note.
+
+He had not guessed she was thus acutely sensitive concerning her
+plumpness.  Instantly, he was all contrition over his unwitting
+offense inflicted on her womanly vanity.
+
+"Oh, I'm sorry, Sadie," he exclaimed penitently. "Please don't be
+really angry with me.  Of course, I didn't mean----"
+
+"To twit on facts!" the secretary interrupted, bitterly.
+
+"Pooh!" Dick cried, craftily.  "You aren't plump enough to be
+sensitive about it.  Why, you're just right."  There was
+something very boyish about his manner, as he caught at the
+girl's arm.  A memory of the days when she had cuddled him caused
+him to speak warmly, forgetting the presence of his father. 
+"Now, don't be angry, Sadie.  Just give me a little kiss, as you
+used to do."  He swept her into his arms, and his lips met hers
+in a hearty caress.  "There!" he cried.  "Just to show there's no
+ill feeling."
+
+The girl was completely mollified, though in much embarrassment.
+
+"Why, Mr. Dick!" she stammered, in confusion. "Why, Mr. Dick!" 
+
+Gilder, who had watched the scene in great astonishment, now
+interposed to end it.
+
+"Stop, Dick!" he commanded, crisply.  "You are actually making
+Sarah blush.  I think that's about enough, son."
+
+But a sudden unaccustomed gust of affection swirled in the breast
+of the lad.  Plain Anglo-Saxon as he was, with all that implies
+as to the avoidance of displays of emotion, nevertheless he had
+been for a long time in lands far from home, where the habits of
+impulsive and affectionate peoples were radically unlike our own
+austerer forms.  So now, under the spur of an impulse suggested
+by the dalliance with the buxom secretary, he grinned widely and
+went to his father.
+
+"A little kiss never hurts any one," he declared, blithely. Then
+he added vivaciously: "Here, I'll show you!" 
+
+With the words, he clasped his arms around his father's neck,
+and, before that amazed gentleman could understand his purpose,
+he had kissed soundly first the one cheek and then the other,
+each with a hearty, wholesome smack of filial piety.  This done,
+he stood back, still beaming happily, while the astounded Sarah
+tittered bewilderedly.  For his own part, Dick was quite
+unashamed.  He loved his father.  For once, he had expressed that
+fondness in a primitive fashion, and he was glad.
+
+The older man withdrew a step, and there rested motionless, under
+the sway of an emotion akin to dismay. He stood staring intently
+at his son with a perplexity in his expression that was almost
+ludicrous.  When, at last, he spoke, his voice was a rumble of
+strangely shy pleasure.
+
+"God bless my soul!" he exclaimed, violently.  Then he raised a
+hand, and rubbed first one cheek, and after it its fellow, with a
+gentleness that was significant.  The feeling provoked by the
+embrace showed plainly in his next words.  "Why, that's the first
+time you have kissed me, Dick, since you were a little boy.  God
+bless my soul!" he repeated.  And now there was a note of
+jubilation.
+
+The son, somewhat disturbed by this emotion he had aroused,
+nevertheless answered frankly with the expression of his own
+feeling, as he advanced and laid a hand on his father's shoulder.
+
+"The fact is, Dad," he said quietly, with a smile that was good
+to see, "I am awfully glad to see you again."
+
+"Are you, son?"  the father cried happily.  Then, abruptly his
+manner changed, for he felt himself perilously close to the
+maudlin in this new yielding to sentimentality. Such kisses of
+tenderness, however agreeable in themselves, were hardly fitting
+to one of his dignity. "You clear out of here, boy," he
+commanded, brusquely. "I'm a working man.  But here, wait a
+minute," he added.  He brought forth from a pocket a neat sheaf
+of banknotes, which he held out.  "There's carfare for you," he
+said with a chuckle.  "And now clear out.  I'll see you at
+dinner."
+
+Dick bestowed the money in his pocket, and again turned toward
+the door.
+
+"You can always get rid of me on the same terms," he remarked
+slyly.  And then the young man gave evidence that he, too, had
+some of his father's ability in things financial.  For, in the
+doorway he turned with a final speech, which was uttered in
+splendid disregard for the packet of money he had just
+received--perhaps, rather, in a splendid regard for it.  "Oh,
+Dad, please don't forget to give Sadie that five dollars I
+borrowed from her for the taxi'."  And with that impertinent
+reminder he was gone.
+
+The owner of the store returned to his labors with a new zest,
+for the meeting with his son had put him in high spirits. 
+Perhaps it might have been better for Mary Turner had she come to
+him just then, while he was yet in this softened mood.  But fate
+had ordained that other events should restore him to his usual
+harder self before their interview.  The effect was, indeed,
+presently accomplished by the advent of Smithson into the office. 
+He entered with an expression of discomfiture on his rather
+vacuous countenance.  He walked almost nimbly to the desk and
+spoke with evident distress, as his employer looked up
+interrogatively.
+
+"McCracken has detained--er--a--lady, sir," he said, feebly. 
+"She has been searched, and we have found about a hundred dollars
+worth of laces on her."
+
+"Well?"  Gilder demanded, impatiently.  Such affairs were too
+common in the store to make necessary this intrusion of the
+matter on him.  "Why did you come to me about it?"  His staff
+knew just what to do with shoplifters.
+
+At once, Smithson became apologetic, while refusing to retreat.
+
+"I'm very sorry, sir," he said haltingly, "but I thought it
+wiser, sir, to--er--to bring the matter to your personal
+attention."
+
+"Quite unnecessary, Smithson," Gilder returned, with asperity. 
+"You know my views on the subject of property. Tell McCracken to
+have the thief arrested."
+
+Smithson cleared his throat doubtfully, and in his stress of
+feeling he even relaxed a trifle that majestical erectness of
+carriage that had made him so valuable as a floor-walker.
+
+"She's not exactly a--er--a thief," he ventured.
+
+"You are trifling, Smithson," the owner of the store exclaimed,
+in high exasperation.  "Not a thief! And you caught her with a
+hundred dollars worth of laces that she hadn't bought.  Not a
+thief! What in heaven's name do you call her, then?" 
+
+"A kleptomaniac," Smithson explained, retaining his manner of
+mild insistence.  "You see, sir, it's this way. The lady happens
+to be the wife of J. W. Gaskell, the banker, you know."
+
+Yes, Gilder did know.  The mention of the name was like a spell
+in the effect it wrought on the attitude of the irritated owner
+of the store.  Instantly, his expression changed.  While before
+his features had been set grimly, while his eyes had flashed
+wrathfully, there was now only annoyance over an event markedly
+unfortunate.
+
+"How extremely awkward!" he cried; and there was a very real
+concern in his voice.  He regarded Smithson kindly, whereat that
+rather puling gentleman once again assumed his martial bearing. 
+"You were quite right in coming to me."  For a moment he was
+silent, plunged in thought.  Finally he spoke with the
+decisiveness characteristic of him.  "Of course, there's nothing
+we can do.  Just put the stuff back on the counter, and let her
+go."
+
+But Smithson had not yet wholly unburdened himself. Instead of
+immediately leaving the room in pursuance of the succinct
+instructions given him, he again cleared his throat nervously,
+and made known a further aggravating factor in the situation.
+
+"She's very angry, Mr. Gilder," he announced, timidly.
+"She--er--she demands an--er--an apology."
+
+The owner of the store half-rose from his chair, then threw
+himself back with an exclamation of disgust.  He again ejaculated
+the words with which he had greeted his son's unexpected kisses,
+but now there was a vast difference in the intonation.
+
+"God bless my soul!" he cried.  From his expression, it was clear
+that a pious aspiration was farthest from his thought.  On the
+contrary! Again, he fell silent, considering the situation which
+Smithson had presented, and, as he reflected, his frown betrayed
+the emotion natural enough under the circumstances.  At last,
+however, he mastered his irritation to some degree, and spoke his
+command briefly.  "Well, Smithson, apologize to her. It can't be
+helped."  Then his face lighted with a sardonic amusement.  "And,
+Smithson," he went on with a sort of elephantine playfulness, "I
+shall take it as a personal favor if you will tactfully advise
+the lady that the goods at Altman and Stern's are really even
+finer than ours."
+
+When Smithson had left the office, Gilder turned to his
+secretary.
+
+"Take this," he directed, and he forthwith dictated the following
+letter to the husband of the lady who was not a thief, as
+Smithson had so painstakingly pointed out:
+
+"J. W. GASKELL, ESQ.,           "Central National Bank, New York.
+
+"MY DEAR Mr. GASKELL: I feel that I should be doing less than my
+duty as a man if I did not let you know at once that Mrs. Gaskell
+is in urgent need of medical attention.  She came into our store
+to-day, and----" 
+
+He paused for a moment.  "No, put it this way," he said finally: 
+
+"We found her wandering about our store to-day in a very nervous
+condition.  In her excitement, she carried away about one hundred
+dollars' worth of rare laces. Not recognizing her, our store
+detective detained her for a short time.  Fortunately for us all,
+Mrs. Gaskell was able to explain who she was, and she has just
+gone to her home.  Hoping for Mrs. Gaskell's speedy recovery, and
+with all good wishes, I am,                     "Yours very
+truly."  
+
+Yet, though he had completed the letter, Gilder did not at once
+take up another detail of his business.  Instead, he remained
+plunged in thought, and now his frown was one of simple
+bewilderment.  A number of minutes passed before he spoke, and
+then his words revealed distinctly what had been his train of
+meditation.
+
+"Sadie," he said in a voice of entire sincerity, "I can't
+understand theft.  It's a thing absolutely beyond my
+comprehension."
+
+On the heels of this ingenuous declaration, Smithson entered the
+office, and that excellent gentleman appeared even more perturbed
+than before.
+
+"What on earth is the matter now?"  Gilder spluttered,
+suspiciously.
+
+"It's Mrs. Gaskell still," Smithson replied in great trepidation. 
+"She wants you personally, Mr. Gilder, to apologize to her.  She
+says that the action taken against her is an outrage, and she is
+not satisfied with the apologies of all the rest of us.  She says
+you must make one, too, and that the store detective must be
+discharged for intolerable insolence."
+
+Gilder bounced up from his chair angrily.
+
+"I'll be damned if I'll discharge McCracken," he vociferated,
+glaring on Smithson, who shrank visibly.
+
+But that mild and meek man had a certain strength of pertinacity. 
+Besides, in this case, he had been having multitudinous troubles
+of his own, which could be ended only by his employer's placating
+of the offended kleptomaniac.
+
+"But about the apology, Mr. Gilder," he reminded, speaking very
+deferentially, yet with insistence.
+
+Business instinct triumphed over the magnate's irritation, and
+his face cleared.
+
+"Oh, I'll apologize," he said with a wry smile of discomfiture. 
+"I'll make things even up a bit when I get an apology from
+Gaskell.  I shrewdly suspect that that estimable gentleman is
+going to eat humble pie, of my baking, from his wife's recipe. 
+And his will be an honest apology--which mine won't, not by a
+damned sight!" With the words, he left the room, in his wake a
+hugely relieved Smithson.
+
+Alone in the office, Sarah neglected her work for a few minutes
+to brood over the startling contrast of events that had just
+forced itself on her attention.  She was not a girl given to the
+analysis of either persons or things, but in this instance the
+movement of affairs had come close to her, and she was compelled
+to some depth of feeling by the two aspects of life on which
+to-day she looked.  In the one case, as she knew it, a girl under
+the urge of poverty had stolen.  That thief had been promptly
+arrested, finally she had been tried, had been convicted, had
+been sentenced to three years in prison. In the other case, a
+woman of wealth had stolen.  There had been no punishment.  A
+euphemism of kleptomania had been offered and accepted as
+sufficient excuse for her crime.  A polite lie had been written
+to her husband, a banker of power in the city.  To her, the
+proprietor of the store was even now apologizing in courteous
+phrases of regret.... And Mary Turner had been sentenced to three
+years in prison.  Sadie shook her head in dolorous doubt, as she
+again bent over the keys of her typewriter.  Certainly, some
+happenings in this world of ours did not seem quite fair.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. THE VICTIM OF THE LAW. 
+
+It was on this same day that Sarah, on one of her numerous trips
+through the store in behalf of Gilder, was accosted by a
+salesgirl, whose name, Helen Morris, she chanced to know.  It was
+in a spot somewhere out of the crowd, so that for the moment the
+two were practically alone.  The salesgirl showed signs of
+embarrassment as she ventured to lay a detaining hand on Sarah's
+arm, but she maintained her position, despite the secretary's
+manner of disapproval.
+
+"What on earth do you want?"  Sarah inquired, snappishly.
+
+The salesgirl put her question at once.
+
+"What did they do to Mary Turner?" 
+
+"Oh, that!" the secretary exclaimed, with increased impatience
+over the delay, for she was very busy, as always.  "You will all
+know soon enough."
+
+"Tell me now."  The voice of the girl was singularly compelling;
+there was something vividly impressive about her just now, though
+her pallid, prematurely mature face and the thin figure in the
+regulation black dress and white apron showed ordinarily only
+insignificant. "Tell me now," she repeated, with a monotonous
+emphasis that somehow moved Sarah to obedience against her will,
+greatly to her own surprise.
+
+"They sent her to prison for three years," she answered, sharply.
+
+"Three years?"  The salesgirl had repeated the words in a tone
+that was indefinable, yet a tone vehement in its incredulous
+questioning.  "Three years?"  she said again, as one refusing to
+believe.
+
+"Yes," Sarah said, impressed by the girl's earnestness; "three
+years."
+
+"Good God!" There was no irreverence in the exclamation that
+broke from the girl's lips.  Instead, only a tense horror that
+touched to the roots of emotion.
+
+Sarah regarded this display of feeling on the part of the young
+woman before her with an increasing astonishment. It was not in
+her own nature to be demonstrative, and such strong expression of
+emotion as this she deemed rather suspicious.  She recalled, in
+addition, the fact that his was not the first time that Helen
+Morris had shown a particular interest in the fate of Mary
+Turner.  Sarah wondered why.
+
+"Say," she demanded, with the directness habitual to her, "why
+are you so anxious about it?  This is the third time you have
+asked me about Mary Turner. What's it to you, I'd like to know?" 
+
+The salesgirl started violently, and a deep flush drove the
+accustomed pallor from her cheeks.  She was obviously much
+disturbed by the question.
+
+"What is it to me?"  she repeated in an effort to gain time. 
+"Why, nothing--nothing at all!" Her expression of distress
+lightened a little as she hit on an excuse that might serve to
+justify her interest.  "Nothing at all, only--she's a friend of
+mine, a great friend of mine. Oh, yes!" Then, in an instant, the
+look of relief vanished, as once again the terrible reality
+hammered on her consciousness, and an overwhelming dejection
+showed in the dull eyes and in the drooping curves of the white
+lips.  There was a monotone of desolation as she went on speaking
+in a whisper meant for the ears of no other. "It's awful--three
+years! Oh, I didn't understand! It's awful!--awful!" With the
+final word, she hurried off, her head bowed.  She was still
+murmuring brokenly, incoherently.  Her whole attitude was of
+wondering grief.
+
+Sarah stared after the girl in complete mystification. She could
+not at first guess any possible cause for an emotion so poignant. 
+Presently, however, her shrewd, though very prosaic, commonsense
+suggested a simple explanation of the girl's extraordinary
+distress.
+
+"I'll bet that girl has been tempted to steal.  But she didn't,
+because she was afraid."  With this satisfactory conclusion of
+her wonderment, the secretary hurried on her way, quite content. 
+It never occurred to her that the girl might have been tempted to
+steal--and had not resisted the temptation.
+
+It was on account of this brief conversation with the salesgirl
+that Sarah was thinking intently of Mary Turner, after her return
+to the office, from which Gilder himself happened to be absent
+for the moment.  As the secretary glanced up at the opening of
+the door, she did not at first recognize the figure outlined
+there.  She remembered Mary Turner as a tall, slender girl, who
+showed an underlying vitality in every movement, a girl with a
+face of regular features, in which was a complexion of blended
+milk and roses, with a radiant joy of life shining through all
+her arduous and vulgar conditions. Instead of this, now, she saw
+a frail form that stood swaying in the opening of the doorway,
+that bent in a sinister fashion which told of bodily impotence,
+while the face was quite bloodless.  And, too, there was over all
+else a pall of helplessness--helplessness that had endured much,
+and must still endure infinitely more.
+
+As a reinforcement of the dread import of that figure of wo, a
+man stood beside it, and one of his hands was clasped around the
+girl's wrist, a man who wore his derby hat somewhat far back on
+his bullet-shaped head, whose feet were conspicuous in shoes with
+very heavy soles and very square toes.
+
+It was the man who now took charge of the situation. Cassidy,
+from Headquarters, spoke in a rough, indifferent voice, well
+suited to his appearance of stolid strength.
+
+"The District Attorney told me to bring this girl here on my way
+to the Grand Central Station with her."
+
+Sarah got to her feet mechanically.  Somehow, from the raucous
+notes of the policeman's voice, she understood in a flash of
+illumination that the pitiful figure there in the doorway was
+that of Mary Turner, whom she had remembered so different, so
+frightfully different. She spoke with a miserable effort toward
+her usual liveliness.
+
+"Mr. Gilder will be right back.  Come in and wait."  She wished
+to say something more, something of welcome or of mourning, to
+the girl there, but she found herself incapable of a single word
+for the moment, and could only stand dumb while the man stepped
+forward, with his charge following helplessly in his clutch.
+
+The two went forward very slowly, the officer, carelessly
+conscious of his duty, walking with awkward steps to suit the
+feeble movements of the girl, the girl letting herself be dragged
+onward, aware of the futility of any resistance to the inexorable
+power that now had her in its grip, of which the man was the
+present agent.  As the pair came thus falteringly into the center
+of the room, Sarah at last found her voice for an expression of
+sympathy.
+
+"I'm sorry, Mary," she said, hesitatingly.  "I'm terribly sorry,
+terribly sorry!" 
+
+The girl, who had halted when the officer halted, as a matter of
+course, did not look up.  She stood still, swaying a little as if
+from weakness.  Her voice was lifeless.
+
+"Are you?"  she said.  "I did not know.  Nobody has been near me
+the whole time I have been in the Tombs."  There was infinite
+pathos in the tones as she repeated the words so fraught with
+dreadfulness.  "Nobody has been near me!" 
+
+The secretary felt a sudden glow of shame.  She realized the
+justice of that unconscious accusation, for, till to-day, she had
+had no thought of the suffering girl there in the prison.  To
+assuage remorse, she sought to give evidence as to a prevalent
+sympathy.
+
+"Why," she exclaimed, "there was Helen Morris to-day! She has
+been asking about you again and again. She's all broken up over
+your trouble."
+
+But the effort on the secretary's part was wholly without
+success.
+
+"Who is Helen Morris?"  the lifeless voice demanded. There was no
+interest in the question.
+
+Sarah experienced a momentary astonishment, for she was still
+remembering the feverish excitement displayed by the salesgirl,
+who had declared herself to be a most intimate friend of the
+convict.  But the mystery was to remain unsolved, since Gilder
+now entered the office. He walked with the quick, bustling
+activity that was ordinarily expressed in his every movement.  He
+paused for an instant, as he beheld the two visitors in the
+center of the room, then he spoke curtly to the secretary, while
+crossing to his chair at the desk.
+
+"You may go, Sarah.  I will ring when I wish you again."
+
+There followed an interval of silence, while the secretary was
+leaving the office and the girl with her warder stood waiting on
+his pleasure.  Gilder cleared his throat twice in an
+embarrassment foreign to him, before finally he spoke to the
+girl.  At last, the proprietor of the store expressed himself in
+a voice of genuine sympathy, for the spectacle of wo presented
+there before his very eyes moved him to a real distress, since it
+was indeed actual, something that did not depend on an
+appreciation to be developed out of imagination.
+
+"My girl," Gilder said gently--his hard voice was softened by an
+honest regret--"my girl, I am sorry about this."
+
+"You should be!" came the instant answer.  Yet, the words were
+uttered with a total lack of emotion.  It seemed from their
+intonation that the speaker voiced merely a statement concerning
+a recondite matter of truth, with which sentiment had nothing
+whatever to do. But the effect on the employer was unfortunate. 
+It aroused at once his antagonism against the girl.  His instinct
+of sympathy with which he had greeted her at the outset was
+repelled, and made of no avail.  Worse, it was transformed into
+an emotion hostile to the one who thus offended him by rejection
+of the well-meant kindliness of his address
+
+"Come, come!" he exclaimed, testily.  "That's no tone to take
+with me."
+
+"Why?  What sort of tone do you expect me to take?"  was the
+retort in the listless voice.  Yet, now, in the dullness ran a
+faint suggestion of something sinister.
+
+"I expected a decent amount of humility from one in your
+position," was the tart rejoinder of the magnate.
+
+Life quickened swiftly in the drooping form of the girl.  Her
+muscles tensed.  She stood suddenly erect, in the vigor of her
+youth again.  Her face lost in the same second its bleakness of
+pallor.  The eyes opened widely, with startling abruptness, and
+looked straight into those of the man who had employed her.
+
+"Would you be humble," she demanded, and now her voice was become
+softly musical, yet forbidding, too, with a note of passion,
+"would you be humble if you were going to prison for three
+years--for something you didn't do?" 
+
+There was anguish in the cry torn from the girl's throat in the
+sudden access of despair.  The words thrilled Gilder beyond
+anything that he had supposed possible in such case.  He found
+himself in this emergency totally at a loss, and moved in his
+chair doubtfully, wishing to say something, and quite unable.  He
+was still seeking some question, some criticism, some rebuke,
+when he was unfeignedly relieved to hear the policeman's harsh
+voice.
+
+"Don't mind her, sir," Cassidy said.  He meant to make his manner
+very reassuring.  "They all say that. They are innocent, of
+course! Yep--they all say it. It don't do 'em any good, but just
+the same they all swear they're innocent.  They keep it up to the
+very last, no matter how right they've been got."
+
+The voice of the girl rang clear.  There was a note of insistence
+that carried a curious dignity of its own.  The very simplicity
+of her statement might have had a power to convince one who
+listened without prejudice, although the words themselves were of
+the trite sort that any protesting criminal might utter.
+
+"I tell you, I didn't do it!" 
+
+Gilder himself felt the surge of emotion that swung through these
+moments, but he would not yield to it. With his lack of
+imagination, he could not interpret what this time must mean to
+the girl before him.  Rather, he merely deemed it his duty to
+carry through this unfortunate affair with a scrupulous attention
+to detail, in the fashion that had always been characteristic of
+him during the years in which he had steadily mounted from the
+bottom to the top.
+
+"What's the use of all this pretense?"  he demanded, sharply. 
+"You were given a fair trial, and there's an end of it."
+
+The girl, standing there so feebly, seeming indeed to cling for
+support to the man who always held her thus closely by the wrist,
+spoke again with an astonishing clearness, even with a sort of
+vivacity, as if she explained easily something otherwise in
+doubt.
+
+"Oh, no, I wasn't!" she contradicted bluntly, with a singular
+confidence of assertion.  "Why, if the trial had been fair, I
+shouldn't be here."
+
+The harsh voice of Cassidy again broke in on the passion of the
+girl with a professional sneer.
+
+"That's another thing they all say."
+
+But the girl went on speaking fiercely, impervious to the man's
+coarse sarcasm, her eyes, which had deepened almost to purple,
+still fixed piercingly on Gilder, who, for some reason wholly
+inexplicable to him, felt himself strangely disturbed under that
+regard.
+
+"Do you call it fair when the lawyer I had was only a boy--one
+whom the court told me to take, a boy trying his first case--my
+case, that meant the ruin of my life?  My lawyer! Why, he was
+just getting experience--getting it at my expense!" The girl
+paused as if exhausted by the vehemence of her emotion, and at
+last the sparkling eyes drooped and the heavy lids closed over
+them.  She swayed a little, so that the officer tightened his
+clasp on her wrist.
+
+There followed a few seconds of silence.  Then Gilder made an
+effort to shake off the feeling that had so possessed him, and to
+a certain degree he succeeded.
+
+"The jury found you guilty," he asserted, with an attempt to make
+his voice magisterial in its severity.
+
+Instantly, Mary was aroused to a new outburst of protest.  Once
+again, her eyes shot their fires at the man seated behind the
+desk, and she went forward a step imperiously, dragging the
+officer in her wake.
+
+"Yes, the jury found me guilty," she agreed, with fine scorn in
+the musical cadences of her voice.  "Do you know why?  I can tell
+you, Mr. Gilder.  It was because they had been out for three
+hours without reaching a decision.  The evidence didn't seem to
+be quite enough for some of them, after all.  Well, the judge
+threatened to lock them up all night.  The men wanted to get
+home.  The easy thing to do was to find me guilty, and let it go
+at that.  Was that fair, do you think?  And that's not all,
+either.  Was it fair of you, Mr. Gilder?  Was it fair of you to
+come to the court this morning, and tell the judge that I should
+be sent to prison as a warning to others?" 
+
+A quick flush burned on the massive face of the man whom she thus
+accused, and his eyes refused to meet her steady gaze of
+reproach.
+
+"You know!" he exclaimed, in momentary consternation. Again, her
+mood had affected his own, so that through a few hurrying seconds
+he felt himself somehow guilty of wrong against this girl, so
+frank and so rebuking.
+
+"I heard you in the courtroom," she said.  "The dock isn't very
+far from the bench where you spoke to the judge about my case. 
+Yes, I heard you.  It wasn't: Did I do it?  Or, didn't I do it? 
+No; it was only that I must be made a warning to others."
+
+Again, silence fell for a tense interval.  Then, finally, the
+girl spoke in a different tone.  Where before her voice had been
+vibrant with the instinct of complaint against the mockery of
+justice under which she suffered, now there was a deeper note,
+that of most solemn truth.
+
+"Mr. Gilder," she said simply, "as God is my judge, I am going to
+prison for three years for something I didn't do."
+
+But the sincerity of her broken cry fell on unheeding ears.  The
+coarse nature of the officer had long ago lost whatever elements
+of softness there might have been to develop in a gentler
+occupation.  As for the owner of the store, he was not
+sufficiently sensitive to feel the verity in the accents of the
+speaker.  Moreover, he was a man who followed the conventional,
+with never a distraction due to imagination and sympathy.  Just
+now, too, he was experiencing a keen irritation against himself
+because of the manner in which he had been sensible to the
+influence of her protestation, despite his will to the contrary. 
+That irritation against himself only reacted against the girl,
+and caused him to steel his heart to resist any tendency toward
+commiseration.  So, this declaration of innocence was made quite
+in vain--indeed, served rather to strengthen his disfavor toward
+the complainant, and to make his manner harsher when she voiced
+the pitiful question over which she had wondered and grieved.
+
+"Why did you ask the judge to send me to prison?" 
+
+"The thieving that has been going on in this store for over a
+year has got to stop," Gilder answered emphatically, with all his
+usual energy of manner restored. As he spoke, he raised his eyes
+and met the girl's glance fairly.  Thought of the robberies was
+quite enough to make him pitiless toward the offender.
+
+"Sending me to prison won't stop it," Mary Turner said, drearily.
+
+"Perhaps not," Gilder sternly retorted.  "But the discovery and
+punishment of the other guilty ones will."  His manner changed to
+a business-like alertness.  "You sent word to me that you could
+tell me how to stop the thefts in the store.  Well, my girl, do
+this, and, while I can make no definite promise, I'll see what
+can be done about getting you out of your present difficulty." 
+He picked up a pencil, pulled a pad of blank paper convenient to
+his hand, and looked at the girl expectantly, with aggressive
+inquiry in his gaze.  "Tell me now," he concluded, "who were your
+pals?" 
+
+The matter-of-fact manner of this man who had unwittingly wronged
+her so frightfully was the last straw on the girl's burden of
+suffering.  Under it, her patient endurance broke, and she cried
+out in a voice of utter despair that caused Gilder to start
+nervously, and even impelled the stolid officer to a frown of
+remonstrance.
+
+"I have no pals!" she ejaculated, furiously.  "I never stole
+anything in my life.  Must I go on telling you over and over
+again?"  Her voice rose in a wail of misery.  "Oh, why won't any
+one believe me?" 
+
+Gilder was much offended by this display of an hysterical grief,
+which seemed to his phlegmatic temperament altogether unwarranted
+by the circumstances.  He spoke decisively.
+
+"Unless you can control yourself, you must go."  He pushed away
+the pad of paper, and tossed the pencil aside in physical
+expression of his displeasure.  "Why did you send that message,
+if you have nothing to say?"  he demanded, with increasing
+choler.
+
+But now the girl had regained her former poise.  She stood a
+little drooping and shaken, where for a moment she had been erect
+and tensed.  There was a vast weariness in her words as she
+answered.
+
+"I have something to tell you, Mr. Gilder," she said, quietly. 
+"Only, I--I sort of lost my grip on the way here, with this man
+by my side."
+
+"Most of 'em do, the first time," the officer commented, with a
+certain grim appreciation.
+
+"Well?"  Gilder insisted querulously, as the girl hesitated.
+
+At once, Mary went on speaking, and now a little increase of
+vigor trembled in her tones.
+
+"When you sit in a cell for three months waiting for your trial,
+as I did, you think a lot.  And, so, I got the idea that if I
+could talk to you, I might be able to make you understand what's
+really wrong.  And if I could do that, and so help out the other
+girls, what has happened to me would not, after all, be quite so
+awful--so useless, somehow."  Her voice lowered to a quick
+pleading, and she bent toward the man at the desk. "Mr. Gilder,"
+she questioned, "do you really want to stop the girls from
+stealing?" 
+
+"Most certainly I do," came the forcible reply.
+
+The girl spoke with a great earnestness, deliberately.
+
+"Then, give them a fair chance."
+
+The magnate stared in sincere astonishment over this absurd, this
+futile suggestion for his guidance.
+
+"What do you mean?"  he vociferated, with rising indignation.
+There was an added hostility in his demeanor, for it seemed to
+him that this thief of his goods whom he had brought to justice
+was daring to trifle with him.  He grew wrathful over the
+suspicion, but a secret curiosity still held his temper within
+bounds "What do you mean?"  he repeated; and now the full force
+of his strong voice set the room trembling.
+
+The tones of the girl came softly musical, made more delicately
+resonant to the ear by contrast with the man's roaring.
+
+"Why," she said, very gently, "I mean just this: Give them a
+living chance to be honest."
+
+"A living chance!" The two words were exploded with dynamic
+violence.  The preposterousness of the advice fired Gilder with
+resentment so pervasive that through many seconds he found
+himself unable to express the rage that flamed within him.
+
+The girl showed herself undismayed by his anger.
+
+"Yes," she went on, quietly; "that's all there is to it. Give
+them a living chance to get enough food to eat, and a decent room
+to sleep in, and shoes that will keep their feet off the pavement
+winter mornings.  Do you think that any girl wants to steal?  Do
+you think that any girl wants to risk----?" 
+
+By this time, however, Gilder had regained his powers of speech,
+and he interrupted stormily.
+
+"And is this what you have taken up my time for?  You want to
+make a maudlin plea for guilty, dishonest girls, when I thought
+you really meant to bring me facts."
+
+Nevertheless, Mary went on with her arraignment uncompromisingly. 
+There was a strange, compelling energy in her inflections that
+penetrated even the pachydermatous officer, so that, though he
+thought her raving, he let her rave on, which was not at all his
+habit of conduct, and did indeed surprise him mightily.  As for
+Gilder, he felt helpless in some puzzling fashion that was
+totally foreign to his ordinary self.  He was still glowing with
+wrath over the method by which he had been victimized into giving
+the girl a hearing.  Yet, despite his chagrin, he realized that
+he could not send her from him forthwith.  By some inexplicable
+spell she bound him impotent.
+
+"We work nine hours a day," the quiet voice went on, a curious
+pathos in the rich timbre of it; "nine hours a day, for six days
+in the week.  That's a fact, isn't it?  And the trouble is, an
+honest girl can't live on six dollars a week.  She can't do it,
+and buy food and clothes, and pay room-rent and carfare.  That's
+another fact, isn't it?" 
+
+Mary regarded the owner of the store with grave questioning in
+her violet eyes.  Under the urgency of emotion, color crept into
+the pallid cheeks, and now her face was very beautiful--so
+beautiful, indeed, that for a little the charm of its loveliness
+caught the man's gaze, and he watched her with a new respect,
+born of appreciation for her feminine delightfulness.  The
+impression was far too brief.  Gilder was not given to esthetic
+raptures over women.  Always, the business instinct was the
+dominant.  So, after the short period of amazed admiration over
+such unexpected winsomeness, his thoughts flew back angrily to
+the matters whereof she spoke so ridiculously.
+
+"I don't care to discuss these things," he declared peremptorily,
+as the girl remained silent for a moment.
+
+"And I have no wish to discuss anything," Mary returned evenly. 
+"I only want to give you what you asked for--facts."  A faint
+smile of reminiscence curved the girl's lips.  "When they first
+locked me up," she explained, without any particular evidence of
+emotion, "I used to sit and hate you."
+
+"Oh, of course!" came the caustic exclamation from Gilder.
+
+"And then, I thought that perhaps you did not understand," Mary
+continued; "that, if I were to tell you how things really are, it
+might be you would change them somehow."
+
+At this ingenuous statement, the owner of the store gave forth a
+gasp of sheer stupefaction.
+
+"I!" he cried, incredulously.  "I change my business policy
+because you ask me to!" 
+
+There was something imperturbable in the quality of the voice as
+the girl went resolutely forward with her explanation.  It was as
+if she were discharging a duty not to be gainsaid, not to be
+thwarted by any difficulty, not even the realization that all the
+effort must be ultimately in vain.
+
+"Do you know how we girls live?--but, of course, you don't. 
+Three of us in one room, doing our own cooking over the
+two-burner gas-stove, and our own washing and ironing evenings,
+after being on our feet for nine hours."
+
+The enumeration of the sordid details left the employer
+absolutely unmoved, since he lacked the imagination necessary to
+sympathize actually with the straining evil of a life such as the
+girl had known.  Indeed, he spoke with an air of just
+remonstrance, as if the girl's charges were mischievously faulty.
+
+"I have provided chairs behind the counters," he stated.
+
+There was no especial change in the girl's voice as she answered
+his defense.  It continued musically low, but there was in it the
+insistent note of sincerity.
+
+"But have you ever seen a girl sitting in one of them?"  she
+questioned, coldly.  "Please answer me. Have you?  Of course
+not," she said, after a little pause during which the owner had
+remained silent.  She shook her head in emphatic negation.  "And
+do you understand why?  It's simply because every girl knows that
+the manager of her department would think he could get along
+without her, if he were to see her sitting down ----loafing, you
+know! So, she would be discharged. All it amounts to is that,
+after being on her feet for nine hours, the girl usually walks
+home, in order to save carfare.  Yes, she walks, whether sick or
+well.  Anyhow, you are generally so tired, it don't make much
+difference which you are."
+
+Gilder was fuming under these strictures, which seemed to him
+altogether baseless attacks on himself. His exasperation steadily
+waxed against the girl, a convicted felon, who thus had the
+audacity to beard him.
+
+"What has all this to do with the question of theft in the
+store?"  he rumbled, huffily.  "That was the excuse for your
+coming here.  And, instead of telling me something, you rant
+about gas-stoves and carfare."
+
+The inexorable voice went on in its monotone, as if he had not
+spoken.
+
+"And, when you are really sick, and have to stop work, what are
+you going to do then?  Do you know, Mr. Gilder, that the first
+time a straight girl steals, it's often because she had to have a
+doctor--or some luxury like that?  And some of them do worse than
+steal.  Yes, they do--girls that started straight, and wanted to
+stay that way.  But, of course, some of them get so tired of the
+whole grind that--that----"
+
+The man who was the employer of hundreds concerning whom these
+grim truths were uttered, stirred uneasily in his chair, and
+there came a touch of color into the healthy brown of his cheeks
+as he spoke his protest.
+
+"I'm not their guardian.  I can't watch over them after they
+leave the store.  They are paid the current rate of wages--as
+much as any other store pays."  As he spoke, the anger provoked
+by this unexpected assault on him out of the mouth of a convict
+flamed high in virtuous repudiation.  "Why," he went on
+vehemently, "no man living does more for his employees than I do. 
+Who gave the girls their fine rest-rooms upstairs?  I did! Who
+gave them the cheap lunch-rooms?  I did!" 
+
+"But you won't pay them enough to live on!" The very fact that
+the words were spoken without any trace of rancor merely made
+this statement of indisputable truth obnoxious to the man, who
+was stung to more savage resentment in asserting his impugned
+self-righteousness.
+
+"I pay them the same as the other stores do," he repeated,
+sullenly.
+
+Yet once again, the gently cadenced voice gave answer, an answer
+informed with that repulsive insistence to the man who sought to
+resist her indictment of him.
+
+"But you won't pay them enough to live on."  The simple lucidity
+of the charge forbade direct reply.
+
+Gilder betook himself to evasion by harking back to the
+established ground of complaint.
+
+"And, so, you claim that you were forced to steal. That's the
+plea you make for yourself and your friends."
+
+"I wasn't forced to steal," came the answer, spoken in the
+monotone that had marked her utterance throughout most of the
+interview.  "I wasn't forced to steal, and I didn't steal.  But,
+all the same, that's the plea, as you call it, that I'm making
+for the other girls.  There are hundreds of them who steal
+because they don't get enough to eat.  I said I would tell you
+how to stop the stealing.  Well, I have done it.  Give the girls
+a fair chance to be honest.  You asked me for the names, Mr.
+Gilder.  There's only one name on which to put the blame for the
+whole business--and that name is Edward Gilder!... Now, won't you
+do something about it?" 
+
+At that naked question, the owner of the store jumped up from his
+chair, and stood glowering at the girl who risked a request so
+full of vituperation against himself.
+
+"How dare you speak to me like this?"  he thundered.
+
+There was no disconcertion exhibited by the one thus challenged. 
+On the contrary, she repeated her question with a simple dignity
+that still further outraged the man.
+
+"Won't you, please, do something about it?" 
+
+"How dare you?"  he shouted again.  Now, there was stark wonder
+in his eyes as he put the question.
+
+"Why, I dared," Mary Turner explained, "because you have done all
+the harm you can to me.  And, now, I'm trying to give you the
+chance to do better by the others.  You ask me why I dare.  I
+have a right to dare! I have been straight all my life.  I have
+wanted decent food and warm clothes, and--a little happiness, all
+the time I have worked for you, and I have gone without those
+things, just to stay straight.... The end of it all is: You are
+sending me to prison for something I didn't do.  That's why I
+dare!" 
+
+Cassidy, the officer in charge of Mary Turner, had stood
+patiently beside her all this while, always holding her by the
+wrist.  He had been mildly interested in the verbal duel between
+the big man of the department store and this convict in his own
+keeping.  Vaguely, he had marveled at the success of the frail
+girl in declaiming of her injuries before the magnate.  He had
+felt no particular interest beyond that, merely looking on as one
+might at any entertaining spectacle.  The question at issue was
+no concern of his.  His sole business was to take the girl away
+when the interview should be ended. It occurred to him now that
+this might, in fact, be the time to depart.  It seemed, indeed,
+that the insistent reiteration of the girl had at last left he
+owner of the store quite powerless to answer.  It was possible,
+then, that it were wiser the girl should be removed.  With the
+idea in mind, he stared inquiringly at Gilder until he caught
+that flustered gentleman's eye.  A nod from the magnate sufficed
+him.  Gilder, in truth, could not trust himself just then to an
+audible command.  He was seriously disturbed by the gently spoken
+truths that had issued from the girl's lips.  He was not prepared
+with any answer, though he hotly resented every word of her
+accusation.  So, when he caught the question in the glance of the
+officer, he felt a guilty sensation of relief as he signified an
+affirmative by his gesture.
+
+Cassidy faced about, and in his movement there was a tug at the
+wrist of the girl that set her moving toward the door.  Her
+realization of what this meant was shown in her final speech.
+
+"Oh, he can take me now," she said, bitterly.  Then her voice
+rose above the monotone that had contented her hitherto.  Into
+the music of her tones beat something sinister, evilly
+vindictive, as she faced about at the doorway to which Cassidy
+had led her.  Her face, as she scrutinized once again the man at
+the desk, was coldly malignant.
+
+"Three years isn't forever," she said, in a level voice. "When I
+come out, you are going to pay for every minute of them, Mr.
+Gilder.  There won't be a day or an hour that I won't remember
+that at the last it was your word sent me to prison.  And you are
+going to pay me for that.  You are going to pay me for the five
+years I have starved making money for you--that, too! You are
+going to pay me for all the things I am losing today, and----"
+
+The girl thrust forth her left hand, on that side where stood the
+officer.  So vigorous was her movement that Cassidy's clasp was
+thrown off the wrist.  But the bond between the two was not
+broken, for from wrist to wrist showed taut the steel chain of
+the manacles.  The girl shook the links of the handcuffs in a
+gesture stronger than words.  In her final utterance to the
+agitated man at the desk, there was a cold threat, a prophecy of
+disaster.  From the symbol of her degradation, she looked to the
+man whose action had placed it there. In the clashing of their
+glances, hers won the victory, so that his eyes fell before the
+menace in hers.
+
+"You are going to pay me for this!" she said.  Her voice was
+little more than a whisper, but it was loud in the listener's
+heart.  "Yes, you are going to pay--for this!" 
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. INFERNO. 
+
+They were grim years, those three during which Mary Turner served
+her sentence in Burnsing.  There was no time off for good
+behavior.  The girl learned soon that the favor of those set in
+authority over her could only be won at a cost against which her
+every maidenly instinct revolted.  So, she went through the
+inferno of days and nights in a dreariness of suffering that was
+deadly.  Naturally, the life there was altogether an evil thing. 
+There was the material ill ever present in the round of wearisome
+physical toil, the coarse, distasteful food, the hard, narrow
+couch, the constant, gnawing irksomeness of imprisonment, away
+from light and air, away from all that makes life worth while.
+
+Yet, these afflictions were not the worst injuries to mar the
+girl convict's life.  That which bore upon her most weightily and
+incessantly was the degradation of this environment from which
+there was never any respite, the viciousness of this spot wherein
+she had been cast through no fault of her own.  Vileness was
+everywhere, visibly in the faces of many, and it was brimming
+from the souls of more, subtly hideous.  The girl held herself
+rigidly from any personal intimacy with her fellows. To some
+extent, at least, she could separate herself from their
+corruption in the matter of personal association.  But, ever
+present, there was a secret energy of vice that could not be
+escaped so simply--nor, indeed, by any device; that breathed in
+the spiritual atmosphere itself of the place.  Always, this
+mysterious, invisible, yet horribly potent, power of sin was like
+a miasma throughout the prison.  Always, it was striving to reach
+her soul, to make her of its own.  She fought the insidious,
+fetid force as best she might.  She was not evil by nature.  She
+had been well grounded in principles of righteousness. 
+Nevertheless, though she maintained the integrity of her
+character, that character suffered from the taint.  There
+developed over the girl's original sensibility a shell of
+hardness, which in time would surely come to make her less
+scrupulous in her reckoning of right and wrong.
+
+Yet, as a rule, character remains the same throughout life as to
+its prime essentials, and, in this case, Mary Turner at the end
+of her term was vitally almost as wholesome as on the day when
+she began the serving of the sentence.  The change wrought in her
+was chiefly of an external sort.  The kindliness of her heart and
+her desire for the seemly joys of life were unweakened.  But over
+the better qualities of her nature was now spread a crust of
+worldly hardness, a denial of appeal to her sensibilities. It was
+this that would eventually bring her perilously close to
+contented companioning with crime.
+
+The best evidence of the fact that Mary Turner's soul was not
+fatally soiled must be found in the fact that still, at the
+expiration of her sentence, she was fully resolved to live
+straight, as the saying is which she had quoted to Gilder.  This,
+too, in the face of sure knowledge as to the difficulties that
+would beset the effort, and in the face of the temptations
+offered to follow an easier path.
+
+There was, for example, Aggie Lynch, a fellow convict, with whom
+she had a slight degree of acquaintance, nothing more.  This
+young woman, a criminal by training, offered allurements of
+illegitimate employment in the outer world when they should be
+free.  Mary endured the companionship with this prisoner because
+a sixth sense proclaimed the fact that here was one unmoral,
+rather than immoral--and the difference is mighty.  For that
+reason, Aggie Lynch was not actively offensive, as were most of
+the others.  She was a dainty little blonde, with a baby face, in
+which were set two light-blue eyes, of a sort to widen often in
+demure wonder over most things in a surprising and naughty world.
+She had been convicted of blackmail, and she made no pretense
+even of innocence.  Instead, she was inclined to boast over her
+ability to bamboozle men at her will. She was a natural actress
+of the ingenue role, and in that pose she could unfailingly
+beguile the heart of the wisest of worldly men.
+
+Perhaps, the very keen student of physiognomy might have
+discovered grounds for suspecting her demureness by reason of the
+thick, level brows that cast a shadow on the bland innocence of
+her face.  For the rest, she possessed a knack of rather harmless
+perversity, a fair smattering of grammar and spelling, and a
+lively sense of humor within her own limitations, with a
+particularly small intelligence in other directions.  Her one art
+was histrionics of the kind that made an individual appeal.  In
+such, she was inimitable.  She had been reared in a criminal
+family, which must excuse much.  Long ago, she had lost track of
+her father; her mother she had never known.  Her one relation was
+a brother of high standing as a pickpocket.  One principal reason
+of her success in leading on men to make fools of themselves over
+her, to their everlasting regret afterward, lay in the fact that,
+in spite of all the gross irregularities of her life, she
+remained chaste.  She deserved no credit for such restraint,
+since it was a matter purely of temperament, not of resolve.
+
+The girl saw in Mary Turner the possibilities of a ladylike
+personality that might mean much financial profit in the devious
+ways of which she was a mistress. With the frankness
+characteristic of her, she proceeded to paint glowing pictures of
+a future shared to the undoing of ardent and fatuous swains. 
+Mary Turner listened with curiosity, but she was in no wise moved
+to follow such a life, even though it did not necessitate
+anything worse than a fraudulent playing at love, without
+physical degradation.  So, she steadfastly continued her
+refusals, to the great astonishment of Aggie, who actually could
+not understand in the least, even while she believed the other's
+declaration of innocence of the crime for which she was serving a
+sentence.  But, for her own part, such innocence had nothing to
+do with the matter.  Where, indeed, could be the harm in making
+some old sinner pay a round price for his folly?  And always, in
+response to every argument, Mary shook her head in negation.  She
+would live straight.
+
+Then, the heavy brows of Aggie would draw down a little, and the
+baby face would harden.
+
+"You will find that you are up against a hell of a frost," she
+would declare, brutally.
+
+Mary found the profane prophecy true.  Back in New York, she
+experienced a poverty more ravaging than any she had known in
+those five lean years of her working in the store.  She had been
+absolutely penniless for two days, and without food through the
+gnawing hours, when she at last found employment of the humblest
+in a milliner's shop.  Followed a blessed interval in which she
+worked contentedly, happy over the meager stipend, since it
+served to give her shelter and food honestly earned.
+
+But the ways of the police are not always those of ordinary
+decency.  In due time, an officer informed Mary's employer
+concerning the fact of her record as a convict, and thereupon she
+was at once discharged. The unfortunate victim of the law came
+perilously close to despair then.  Yet, her spirit triumphed, and
+again she persevered in that resolve to live straight.  Finally,
+for the second time, she secured a cheap position in a cheap
+shop--only to be again persecuted by the police, so that she
+speedily lost the place.
+
+Nevertheless, indomitable in her purpose, she maintained the
+struggle.  A third time she obtained work, and there, after a
+little, she told her employer, a candy manufacturer in a small
+way, the truth as to her having been in prison.  The man had a
+kindly heart, and, in addition, he ran little risk in the matter,
+so he allowed her to remain.  When, presently, the police called
+his attention to the girl's criminal record, he paid no heed to
+their advice against retaining her services.  But such action on
+his part offended the greatness of the law's dignity.  The police
+brought pressure to bear on the man.  They even called in the
+assistance of Edward Gilder himself, who obligingly wrote a very
+severe letter to the girl's employer.  In the end, such tactics
+alarmed the man.  For the sake of his own interests, though
+unwillingly enough, he dismissed Mary from his service.
+
+It was then that despair did come upon the girl.  She had tried
+with all the strength of her to live straight. Yet, despite her
+innocence, the world would not let her live according to her own
+conscience.  It demanded that she be the criminal it had branded
+her--if she were to live at all.  So, it was despair! For she
+would not turn to evil, and without such turning she could not
+live.  She still walked the streets falteringly, seeking some
+place; but her heart was gone from the quest.  Now, she was
+sunken in an apathy that saved her from the worst pangs of
+misery.  She had suffered so much, so poignantly, that at last
+her emotions had grown sluggish.  She did not mind much even when
+her tiny hoard of money was quite gone, and she roamed the city,
+starving.... Came an hour when she thought of the river, and was
+glad!
+
+Mary remembered, with a wan smile, how, long ago, she had thought
+with amazed horror of suicide, unable to imagine any trouble
+sufficient to drive one to death as the only relief.  Now,
+however, the thing was simple to her.  Since there was nothing
+else, she must turn to that--to death.  Indeed, it was so very
+simple, so final, and so easy, after the agonies she had endured,
+that she marveled over her own folly in not having sought such
+escape before.... Even with the first wild fancy, she had
+unconsciously bent her steps westward toward the North River. 
+Now, she quickened her pace, anxious for the plunge that should
+set the term to sorrow.  In her numbed brain was no flicker of
+thought as to whatever might come to her afterward.  Her sole
+guide was that compelling passion of desire to be done with this
+unbearable present.  Nothing else mattered--not in the least!
+
+So, she came through the long stretch of ill-lighted streets,
+crossed some railroad tracks to a pier, over which she hurried to
+the far end, where it projected out to the fiercer currents of
+the Hudson.  There, without giving herself a moment's pause for
+reflection or hesitation, she leaped out as far as her strength
+permitted into the coil of waters.... But, in that final second,
+natural terror in the face of death overcame the lethargy of
+despair--a shriek burst from her lips.
+
+But for that scream of fear, the story of Mary Turner had ended
+there and then.  Only one person was anywhere near to catch the
+sound.  And that single person heard.  On the south side of the
+pier a man had just tied up a motor-boat.  He stood up in alarm
+at the cry, and was just in time to gain a glimpse of a white
+face under the dim moonlight as it swept down with the tide, two
+rods beyond him.  On the instant, he threw off his coat and
+sprang far out after the drifting body.  He came to it in a few
+furious strokes, caught it. Then began the savage struggle to
+save her and himself. The currents tore at him wrathfully, but he
+fought against them with all the fierceness of his nature.  He
+had strength a-plenty, but it needed all of it, and more, to win
+out of the river's hungry clutch.  What saved the two of them was
+the violent temper of the man. Always, it had been the demon to
+set him aflame.  To-night, there in the faint light, within the
+grip of the waters, he was moved to insensate fury against the
+element that menaced.  His rage mounted, and gave him new power
+in the battle.  Maniacal strength grew out of supreme wrath. 
+Under the urge of it, he conquered--at last brought himself and
+his charge to the shore.
+
+When, finally, the rescuer was able to do something more than
+gasp chokingly, he gave anxious attention to the woman whom he
+had brought out from the river. Yet, at the outset, he could not
+be sure that she still lived.  She had shown no sign of life at
+any time since he had first seized her.  That fact had been of
+incalculable advantage to him in his efforts to reach the shore
+with her.  Now, however, it alarmed him mightily, though it
+hardly seemed possible that she could have drowned.  So far as he
+could determine, she: had not even sunk once beneath the surface. 
+Nevertheless, she displayed no evidence of vitality, though he
+chafed her hands for a long time.  The shore here was very
+lonely; it would take precious time to summon aid.  It seemed,
+notwithstanding, that this must be the only course.  Then just as
+the man was about to leave her, the girl sighed, very faintly,
+with an infinite weariness, and opened her eyes.  The man echoed
+the sigh, but his was of joy, since now he knew that his strife
+in the girl's behalf had not been in vain.
+
+Afterward, the rescuer experienced no great difficulty in
+carrying out his work to a satisfactory conclusion. Mary revived
+to clear consciousness, which was at first inclined toward
+hysteria, but this phase yielded soon under the sympathetic
+ministrations of the man.  His rather low voice was soothing to
+her tired soul, and his whole air was at once masterful and
+gently tender. Moreover, there was an inexpressible balm to her
+spirit in the very fact that some one was thus ministering to
+her.  It was the first time for many dreadful years that any one
+had taken thought for her welfare.  The effect of it was like a
+draught of rarest wine to warm her heart.  So, she rested
+obediently as he busied himself with her complete restoration,
+and, when finally she was able to stand, and to walk with the
+support of his arm, she went forward slowly at his side without
+so much even as a question of whither.
+
+And, curiously, the man himself shared the gladness that touched
+the mood of the girl, for he experienced a sudden pride in his
+accomplishment of the night, a pride that delighted a starved
+part of his nature.  Somewhere in him were the seeds of
+self-sacrifice, the seeds of a generous devotion to others.  But
+those seeds had been left undeveloped in a life that had been
+lived since early boyhood outside the pale of respectability. 
+To-night, Joe Garson had performed, perhaps, his first action
+with no thought of self at the back of it.  He had risked his
+life to save that of a stranger.  The fact astonished him, while
+it pleased him hugely.  The sensation was at once novel and
+thrilling.  Since it was so agreeable, he meant to prolong the
+glow of self-satisfaction by continuing to care for this waif of
+the river. He must make his rescue complete.  It did not occur to
+him to question his fitness for the work.  His introspection did
+not reach to a point of suspecting that he, an habitual criminal,
+was necessarily of a sort to be most objectionable as the
+protector of a young girl.  Indeed, had any one suggested the
+thought to him, he would have met it with a sneer, to the effect
+that a wretch thus tired of life could hardly object to any one
+who constituted himself her savior.
+
+In this manner, Joe Garson, the notorious forger, led the
+dripping girl eastward through the squalid streets, until at last
+they came to an adequately lighted avenue, and there a taxicab
+was found.  It carried them farther north, and to the east still,
+until at last it came to a halt before an apartment house that
+was rather imposing, set in a street of humbler dwellings.  Here,
+Garson paid the fare, and then helped the girl to alight, and on
+into the hallway.  Mary went with him quite unafraid, though now
+with a growing curiosity.  Strange as it all was, she felt that
+she could trust this man who had plucked her from death, who had
+worked over her with so much of tender kindliness.  So, she
+waited patiently; only, watched with intentness as he pressed the
+button of a flat number.  She observed with interest the thick,
+wavy gray of his hair, which contradicted pleasantly the
+youthfulness of his clean-shaven, resolute face, and the spare,
+yet well-muscled form.
+
+The clicking of the door-latch sounded soon, and the two entered,
+and went slowly up three flights of stairs. On the landing beyond
+the third flight, the door of a rear flat stood open, and in the
+doorway appeared the figure of a woman.
+
+"Well, Joe, who's the skirt?"  this person demanded, as the man
+and his charge halted before her.  Then, abruptly, the round,
+baby-like face of the woman puckered in amazement.  Her voice
+rose shrill.  "My Gawd, if it ain't Mary Turner!" 
+
+At that, the newcomer's eyes opened swiftly to their widest, and
+she stared astounded in her turn.
+
+"Aggie!" she cried.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. WITHIN THE LAW. 
+
+In the time that followed, Mary lived in the flat which Aggie
+Lynch occupied along with her brother, Jim, a pickpocket much
+esteemed among his fellow craftsmen.  The period wrought
+transformations of radical and bewildering sort in both the
+appearance and the character of the girl.  Joe Garson, the
+forger, had long been acquainted with Aggie and her brother,
+though he considered them far beneath him in the social scale,
+since their criminal work was not of that high kind on which he
+prided himself.  But, as he cast about for some woman to whom he
+might take the hapless girl he had rescued, his thoughts fell on
+Aggie, and forthwith his determination was made, since he knew
+that she was respectable, viewed according to his own peculiar
+lights.  He was relieved rather than otherwise to learn that
+there was already an acquaintance between the two women, and the
+fact that his charge had served time in prison did not influence
+him one jot against her. On the contrary, it increased in some
+measure his respect for her as one of his own kind.  By the time
+he had learned as well of her innocence, he had grown so
+interested that even her folly, as he was inclined to deem it,
+did not cause any wavering in his regard.
+
+Now, at last, Mary Turner let herself drift.  It seemed to her
+that she had abandoned herself to fate in that hour when she
+threw herself into the river. Afterward, without any volition on
+her part, she had been restored to life, and set within an
+environment new and strange to her, in which soon, to her
+surprise, she discovered a vivid pleasure.  So, she fought no
+more, but left destiny to work its will unhampered by her futile
+strivings.  For the first time in her life, thanks to the
+hospitality of Aggie Lynch, secretly reinforced from the funds of
+Joe Garson, Mary found herself living in luxurious idleness,
+while her every wish could be gratified by the merest mention of
+it.  She was fed on the daintiest of fare, for Aggie was a
+sybarite in all sensuous pleasures that were apart from sex. She
+was clothed with the most delicate richness for the first time as
+to those more mysterious garments which women love, and she soon
+had a variety of frocks as charming as her graceful form
+demanded.  In addition, there were as many of books and magazines
+as she could wish.  Her mind, long starved like her body, seized
+avidly on the nourishment thus afforded.  In this interest, Aggie
+had no share--was perhaps a little envious over Mary's absorption
+in printed pages.  But for her consolation were the matters of
+food and dress, and of countless junketings.  In such directions,
+Aggie was the leader, an eager, joyous one always.  She took a
+vast pride in her guest, with the unmistakable air of elegance,
+and she dared to dream of great triumphs to come, though as yet
+she carefully avoided any suggestion to Mary of wrong-doing.
+
+In the end, the suggestion came from Mary Turner herself, to the
+great surprise of Aggie, and, truth to tell, of herself.
+
+There were two factors that chiefly influenced her decision. The
+first was due to the feeling that, since the world had rejected
+her, she need no longer concern herself with the world's opinion,
+or retain any scruples over it.  Back of this lay her bitter
+sentiment toward the man who had been the direct cause of her
+imprisonment, Edward Gilder.  It seemed to her that the general
+warfare against the world might well be made an initial step in
+the warfare she meant to wage, somehow, some time, against that
+man personally, in accordance with the hysterical threat she had
+uttered to his face.
+
+The factor that was the immediate cause of her decision on an
+irregular mode of life was an editorial in one of the daily
+newspapers.  This was a scathing arraignment of a master in high
+finance.  The point of the writer's attack was the grim sarcasm
+for such methods of thievery as are kept within the law.  That
+phrase held the girl's fancy, and she read the article again with
+a quickened interest.  Then, she began to meditate. She herself
+was in a curious, indeterminate attitude as far as concerned the
+law.  It was the law that had worked the ruin of her life, which
+she had striven to make wholesome.  In consequence, she felt for
+the law no genuine respect, only detestation as for the epitome
+of injustice.  Yet, she gave it a superficial respect, born of
+those three years of suffering which had been the result of the
+penalty inflicted on her.  It was as an effect of this latter
+feeling that she was determined on one thing of vital importance:
+that never would she be guilty of anything to pit her against the
+law's decrees. She had known too many hours of anguish in the
+doom set on her life because she had been deemed a violator of
+the law.  No, never would she let herself take any position in
+which the law could accuse her.... But there remained the fact
+that the actual cause of her long misery was this same law,
+manipulated by the man she hated.  It had punished her, though
+she had been without fault.  For that reason, she must always
+regard it as her enemy, must, indeed, hate it with an intensity
+beyond words--with an intensity equal to that she bore the man,
+Gilder.  Now, in the paragraph she had just read she found a clue
+to suggestive thought, a hint as to a means by which she might
+satisfy her rancor against the law that had outraged her--and
+this in safety since she would attempt nought save that within
+the law.
+
+Mary's heart leaped at the possibility back of those three words,
+"within the law."  She might do anything, seek any revenge, work
+any evil, enjoy any mastery, as long as she should keep within
+the law.  There could be no punishment then.  That was the lesson
+taught by the captain in high finance.  He was at pains always in
+his stupendous robberies to keep within the law.  To that end, he
+employed lawyers of mighty cunning and learning to guide his
+steps aright in such tortuous paths.
+
+There, then, was the secret.  Why should she not use the like
+means?  Why, indeed?  She had brains enough to devise, surely. 
+Beyond that, she needed only to keep her course most carefully
+within those limits of wrong-doing permitted by the statutes. 
+For that, the sole requirement would be a lawyer equally
+unscrupulous and astute.  At once, Mary's mind was made up. 
+After all, the thing was absurdly simple.  It was merely a matter
+for ingenuity and for prudence in alliance.... Moreover, there
+would come eventually some adequate device against her
+arch-enemy, Edward Gilder.
+
+Mary meditated on the idea for many days, and ever it seemed
+increasingly good to her.  Finally, it developed to a point where
+she believed it altogether feasible, and then she took Joe Garson
+into her confidence.  He was vastly astonished at the outset and
+not quite pleased.  To his view, this plan offered merely a
+fashion of setting difficulties in the way of achievement. 
+Presently, however, the sincerity and persistence of the girl won
+him over.  The task of convincing him would have been easier had
+he himself ever known the torment of serving a term in prison. 
+Thus far, however, the forger had always escaped the penalty for
+his crimes, though often close to conviction.  But Mary's
+arguments were of a compelling sort as she set them forth in
+detail, and they made their appeal to Garson, who was by no means
+lacking in a shrewd native intelligence.  He agreed that the
+experiment should be made, notwithstanding the fact that he felt
+no particular enthusiasm over the proposed scheme of working.  It
+is likely that his own strong feeling of attraction toward the
+girl whom he had saved from death, who now appeared before him as
+a radiantly beautiful young woman, was more persuasive than the
+excellent ideas which she presented so emphatically, and with a
+logic so impressive.
+
+An agreement was made by which Joe Garson and certain of his more
+trusted intimates in the underworld were to put themselves under
+the orders of Mary concerning the sphere of their activities. 
+Furthermore, they bound themselves not to engage in any devious
+business without her consent.  Aggie, too, was one of the company
+thus constituted, but she figured little in the preliminary
+discussions, since neither Mary nor the forger had much respect
+for the intellectual capabilities of the adventuress, though they
+appreciated to the full her remarkable powers of influencing men
+to her will.
+
+It was not difficult to find a lawyer suited to the necessities
+of the undertaking.  Mary bore in mind constantly the high
+financier's reliance on the legal adviser competent to invent a
+method whereby to baffle the law at any desired point, and after
+judicious investigation she selected an ambitious and experienced
+Jew named Sigismund Harris, just in the prime of his mental
+vigors, who possessed a knowledge of the law only to be equalled
+by his disrespect for it.  He seemed, indeed, precisely the man
+to fit the situation for one desirous of outraging the law
+remorselessly, while still retaining a place absolutely within
+it.
+
+Forthwith, the scheme was set in operation.  As a first step,
+Mary Turner became a young lady of independent fortune, who had
+living with her a cousin, Miss Agnes Lynch.  The flat was
+abandoned.  In its stead was an apartment in the nineties on
+Riverside Drive, in which the ladies lived alone with two maids
+to serve them.  Garson had rooms in the neighborhood, but Jim
+Lynch, who persistently refused the conditions of such an
+alliance, betook himself afar, to continue his reckless gathering
+of other folk's money in such wise as to make him amenable to the
+law the very first time he should be caught at it.
+
+A few tentative ventures resulted in profits so large that the
+company grew mightily enthusiastic over the novel manner of
+working.  In each instance, Harris was consulted, and made his
+confidential statement as to the legality of the thing proposed. 
+Mary gratified her eager mind by careful studies in this chosen
+line of nefariousness.  After a few perfectly legal
+breach-of-promise suits, due to Aggie's winsome innocence of
+demeanor, had been settled advantageously out of court, Mary
+devised a scheme of greater elaborateness, with the legal acumen
+of the lawyer to endorse it in the matter of safety.
+
+This netted thirty thousand dollars.  It was planned as the
+swindling of a swindler--which, in fact, had now become the
+secret principle in Mary's morality.
+
+A gentleman possessed of some means, none too scrupulous himself,
+but with high financial aspirations, advertised for a partner to
+invest capital in a business sure to bring large returns.  This
+advertisement caught the eye of Mary Turner, and she answered it. 
+An introductory correspondence encouraged her to hope for the
+victory in a game of cunning against cunning.  She consulted with
+the perspicacious Mr. Harris, and especially sought from him
+detailed information as to partnership law.  His statements gave
+her such confidence that presently she entered into a partnership
+with the advertiser.  By the terms of their agreement, each
+deposited thirty thousand dollars to the partnership account.
+This sum of sixty thousand dollars was ostensibly to be devoted
+to the purchase of a tract of land, which should afterward be
+divided into lots, and resold to the public at enormous profit. 
+As a matter of fact, the advertiser planned to make a spurious
+purchase of the tract in question, by means of forged deeds
+granted by an accomplice, thus making through fraud a neat profit
+of thirty thousand dollars.  The issue was, however,
+disappointing to him in the extreme.  No sooner was the sixty
+thousand dollars on deposit in the bank than Mary Turner drew out
+the whole amount, as she had a perfect right to do legally.  When
+the advertiser learned of this, he was, naturally enough, full to
+overflowing with wrath.  But after an interview with Harris he
+swallowed this wrath as best he might.  He found that his
+adversary knew a dangerous deal as to his various swindling
+operations.  In short, he could not go into court with clean
+hands, which is a prime stipulation of the law--though often
+honored in the breach.  But the advertiser's hands were too
+perilously filthy, so he let himself be mulcted in raging
+silence.
+
+The event established Mary as the arbiter in her own coterie. 
+Here was, in truth, a new game, a game most entertaining, and
+most profitable, and not in the least risky.  Immediately after
+the adventure with the advertiser, Mary decided that a certain
+General Hastings would make an excellent sacrifice on the altar
+of justice--and to her own financial profit.  The old man was a
+notorious roue, of most unsavory reputation as a destroyer of
+innocence.  It was probable that he would easily fall a victim to
+the ingenuous charms of Aggie. As for that precocious damsel, she
+would run no least risk of destruction by the satyr.  So,
+presently, there were elaborate plottings.  General Hastings met
+Aggie in the most casual way.  He was captivated by her freshness
+and beauty, her demureness, her ignorance of all things vicious. 
+Straightway, he set his snares, being himself already limed.  He
+showered every gallant attention on the naive bread-and-butter
+miss, and succeeded gratifyingly soon in winning her heart--to
+all appearance.  But he gained nothing more, for the coy creature
+abruptly developed most effective powers of resistance to every
+blandishment that went beyond strictest propriety.  His ardor
+cooled suddenly when Harris filed the papers in a suit for ten
+thousand dollars damages for breach of promise.
+
+Even while this affair was still in the course of execution, Mary
+found herself engaged in a direction that offered at least the
+hope of attaining her great desire, revenge against Edward
+Gilder.  This opportunity came in the person of his son, Dick. 
+After much contriving, she secured an introduction to that young
+man.  Forthwith, she showed herself so deliciously womanly, so
+intelligent, so daintily feminine, so singularly beautiful, that
+the young man was enamored almost at once.  The fact thrilled
+Mary to the depths of her heart, for in this son of the man whom
+she hated she saw the instrument of vengeance for which she had
+so longed.  Yet, this one thing was so vital to her that she said
+nothing of her purposes, not even to Aggie, though that observant
+person may have possessed suspicions more or less near the truth.
+
+It was some such suspicion that lay behind her speech as, in
+negligee, she sat cross-legged on the bed, smoking a cigarette in
+a very knowing way, while watching Mary, who was adjusting her
+hat before the mirror of her dressing-table, one pleasant spring
+morning.
+
+"Dollin' up a whole lot, ain't you?"  Aggie remarked, affably,
+with that laxity of language which characterized her natural
+moods.
+
+"I have a very important engagement with Dick Gilder," Mary
+replied, tranquilly.  She vouchsafed nothing more definite as to
+her intentions.
+
+"Nice boy, ain't he?"  Aggie ventured, insinuatingly.
+
+"Oh, I suppose so," came the indifferent answer from Mary, as she
+tilted the picture hat to an angle a trifle more jaunty.
+
+The pseudo cousin sniffed.
+
+"You s'pose that, do you?  Well, anyhow, he's here so much we
+ought to be chargin' him for his meal-ticket. And yet I ain't
+sure that you even know whether he's the real goods, or not."
+
+The fair face of Mary Turner hardened the least bit. There shone
+an expression of inscrutable disdain in the violet eyes, as she
+turned to regard Aggie with a level glance.
+
+"I know that he's the son--the only son!--of Edward Gilder.  The
+fact is enough for me."
+
+The adventuress of the demure face shook her head in token of
+complete bafflement.  Her rosy lips pouted in petulant
+dissatisfaction.
+
+"I don't get you, Mary," she admitted, querulously. "You never
+used to look at the men.  The way you acted when you first run
+round with me, I thought you sure was a suffragette.  And then
+you met this young Gilder --and--good-night, nurse!" 
+
+The hardness remained in Mary's face, as she continued to regard
+her friend.  But, now, there was something quizzical in the
+glance with which she accompanied the monosyllable:
+
+"Well?" 
+
+Again, Aggie shook her head in perplexity.
+
+"His old man sends you up for a stretch for something you didn't
+do--and you take up with his son like----"
+
+"And yet you don't understand!" There was scorn for such gross
+stupidity in the musical voice.
+
+Aggie choked a little from the cigarette smoke, as she gave a
+gasp when suspicion of the truth suddenly dawned on her slow
+intelligence.
+
+"My Gawd!" Her voice came in a treble shriek of apprehension. 
+"I'm wise!" 
+
+"But you must understand this," Mary went on, with an
+authoritative note in her voice.  "Whatever may be between young
+Gilder and me is to be strictly my own affair.  It has absolutely
+nothing to do with the rest of you, or with our schemes for
+money-making.  And, what is more, Agnes, I don't want to talk
+about it. But----"
+
+"Yes?"  queried Aggie, encouragingly, as the other paused.  She
+hopefully awaited further confidences.
+
+"But I do want to know," Mary continued with some severity, "what
+you meant by talking in the public street yesterday with a common
+pickpocket."
+
+Aggie's childlike face changed swiftly its expression from a sly
+eagerness to sullenness.
+
+"You know perfectly well, Mary Turner," she cried indignantly,
+"that I only said a few words in passin' to my brother Jim.  And
+he ain't no common pickpocket. Hully Gee! He's the best dip in
+the business."
+
+"But you must not be seen speaking with him," Mary directed, with
+a certain air of command now become habitual to her among the
+members of her clique.  "My cousin, Miss Agnes Lynch, must be
+very careful as to her associates."
+
+The volatile Agnes was restored to good humor by some subtle
+quality in the utterance, and a family pride asserted itself.
+
+"He just stopped me to say it's been the best year he ever had,"
+she explained, with ostentatious vanity.
+
+Mary appeared sceptical.
+
+"How can that be," she demanded, "when the dead line now is John
+Street?" 
+
+"The dead line!" Aggie scoffed.  A peal of laughter rang merrily
+from her curving lips.
+
+"Why, Jim takes lunch every day in the Wall Street Delmonico's. 
+Yes," she went on with increasing animation, "and only yesterday
+he went down to Police Headquarters, just for a little
+excitement, 'cause Jim does sure hate a dull life.  Say, he told
+me they've got a mat at the door with 'Welcome' on it--in letters
+three feet high.  Now, what--do--you--think--of that!" Aggie
+teetered joyously, the while she inhaled a shockingly large
+mouthful of smoke.  "And, oh, yes!" she continued happily, "Jim,
+he lifted a leather from a bull who was standing in the hallway
+there at Headquarters! Jim sure does love excitement."
+
+Mary lifted her dark eyebrows in half-amused inquiry.
+
+"It's no use, Agnes," she declared, though without entire
+sincerity; "I can't quite keep up with your thieves' argot--your
+slang, you know.  Just what did this brother of yours do?" 
+
+"Why, he copped the copper's kale," Aggie translated, glibly.
+
+Mary threw out her hands in a gesture of dismay.
+
+Thereupon, the adventuress instantly assumed a most ladylike and
+mincing air which ill assorted with the cigarette that she held
+between her lips.
+
+"He gently removed a leathern wallet," she said sedately,
+"containing a large sum of money from the coat pocket of a member
+of the detective force."  The elegance of utterance was
+inimitably done.  But in the next instant, the ordinary vulgarity
+of enunciation was in full play again.  "Oh, Gee!" she cried
+gaily.  "He says Inspector Burke's got a gold watch that weighs a
+ton, an' all set with diamon's!--which was give to 'im
+by--admirin' friends!... We didn't contribute."
+
+"Given to him," Mary corrected, with a tolerant smile.
+
+Aggie sniffed once again.
+
+"What difference does it make?"  she demanded, scornfully.  "He's
+got it, ain't he?"  And then she added with avaricious intensity:
+"Just as soon as I get time, I'm goin' after that watch--believe
+me!" 
+
+Mary shook her head in denial.
+
+"No, you are not," she said, calmly.  "You are under my orders
+now.  And as long as you are working with us, you will break no
+laws."
+
+"But I can't see----" Aggie began to argue with the petulance of
+a spoiled child.
+
+Mary's voice came with a certainty of conviction born of fact.
+
+"When you were working alone," she said gravely, did you have a
+home like this?" 
+
+"No," was the answer, spoken a little rebelliously.
+
+"Or such clothes?  Most of all, did you have safety from the
+police?" 
+
+"No," Aggie admitted, somewhat more responsively. "But, just the
+same, I can't see----"
+
+Mary began putting on her gloves, and at the same time strove to
+give this remarkable young woman some insight into her own point
+of view, though she knew the task to be one well-nigh impossible.
+
+"Agnes," she said, didactically, "the richest men in this country
+have made their fortunes, not because of the law, but in spite of
+the law.  They made up their minds what they wanted to do, and
+then they engaged lawyers clever enough to show them how they
+could do it, and still keep within the law.  Any one with brains
+can get rich in this country if he will engage the right lawyer. 
+Well, I have the brains--and Harris is showing me the law--the
+wonderful twisted law that was made for the rich! Since we keep
+inside the law, we are safe."
+
+Aggie, without much apprehension of the exact situation, was
+moved to a dimpled mirth over the essential humor of the method
+indicated.
+
+"Gee, that's funny," she cried happily.  "You an' me an' Joe
+Garson handin' it to 'em, an' the bulls can't touch us! Next
+thing you know, Harris will be havin' us incorporated as the
+American Legal Crime Society."
+
+"I shouldn't be in the least surprised," Mary assented, as she
+finished buttoning her gloves.  She smiled, but there was a hint
+of grimness in the bending of her lips.  That grimness remained,
+as she glanced at the clock, then went toward the door of the
+room, speaking over her shoulder.
+
+"And, now I must be off to a most important engagement with Mr.
+Dick Gilder."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. A TIP FROM HEADQUARTERS. 
+
+Presently, when she had finished the cigarette, Aggie proceeded
+to her own chamber and there spent a considerable time in making
+a toilette calculated to set off to its full advantage the
+slender daintiness of her form. When at last she was gowned to
+her satisfaction, she went into the drawing-room of the apartment
+and gave herself over to more cigarettes, in an easy chair,
+sprawled out in an attitude of comfort never taught in any
+finishing school for young ladies.  She at the same time indulged
+her tastes in art and literature by reading the jokes and
+studying the comic pictures in an evening paper, which the maid
+brought in at her request.  She had about exhausted this form of
+amusement when the coming of Joe Garson, who was usually in and
+out of the apartment a number of times daily, provided a welcome
+diversion.  After a casual greeting between the two, Aggie
+explained, in response to his question, that Mary had gone out to
+keep an engagement with Dick Gilder.
+
+There was a little period of silence while the man, with the
+resolute face and the light gray eyes that shone so clearly
+underneath the thick, waving silver hair, held his head bent
+downward as if in intent thought.  When, finally, he spoke, there
+was a certain quality in his voice that caused Aggie to regard
+him curiously.
+
+"Mary has been with him a good deal lately," he said, half
+questioningly.
+
+"That's what," was the curt agreement.
+
+Garson brought out his next query with the brutal bluntness of
+his kind; and yet there was a vague suggestion of tenderness in
+his tones under the vulgar words.
+
+"Think she's stuck on him?"  He had seated himself on a settee
+opposite the girl, who did not trouble on his account to assume a
+posture more decorous, and he surveyed her keenly as he waited
+for a reply.
+
+"Why not?"  Aggie retorted.  "Bet your life I'd be, if I had a
+chance.  He's a swell boy.  And his father's got the coin, too."
+
+At this the man moved impatiently, and his eyes wandered to the
+window.  Again, Aggie studied him with a swift glance of
+interrogation.  Not being the possessor of an over-nice
+sensibility as to the feelings of others, she now spoke briskly.
+
+"Joe, if there's anything on your mind, shoot it."
+
+Garson hesitated for a moment, then decided to unburden himself,
+for he craved precise knowledge in this matter.
+
+"It's Mary," he explained, with some embarrassment; "her and
+young Gilder."
+
+"Well?"  came the crisp question.
+
+"Well, somehow," Garson went on, still somewhat confusedly, "I
+can't see any good of it, for her."
+
+"Why?"  Aggie demanded, in surprise.
+
+Garson's manner grew easier, now that the subject was well
+broached.
+
+"Old man Gilder's got a big pull," he vouchsafed, "and if he
+caught on to his boy's going with Mary, he'd be likely to send
+the police after us--strong! Believe me, I ain't looking for any
+trip up the river."
+
+Aggie shook her head, quite unaffected by the man's suggestion of
+possible peril in the situation.
+
+"We ain't done nothin' they can touch us for," she declared, with
+assurance.  "Mary says so."
+
+Garson, however, was unconvinced, notwithstanding his deference
+to the judgment of his leader.
+
+"Whether we've done anything, or whether we haven't, don't
+matter," he objected.  "Once the police set out after you,
+they'll get you.  Russia ain't in it with some of the things I
+have seen pulled off in this town."
+
+"Oh, can that 'fraid talk!" Aggie exclaimed, roughly. "I tell you
+they can't get us.  We've got our fingers crossed."
+
+She would have said more, but a noise at the hall door
+interrupted her, and she looked up to see a man in the opening,
+while behind him appeared the maid, protesting angrily.
+
+"Never mind that announcing thing with me," the newcomer rasped
+to the expostulating servant, in a voice that suited well his
+thick-set figure, with the bullet-shaped head and the bull-like
+neck.  Then he turned to the two in the drawing-room, both of
+whom had now risen to their feet.
+
+"It's all right, Fannie," Aggie said hastily to the flustered
+maid.  "You can go."
+
+As the servant, after an indignant toss of the head, departed
+along the passage, the visitor clumped heavily forward and
+stopped in the center of the room, looking first at one and then
+the other of the two with a smile that was not pleasant.  He was
+not at pains to remove the derby hat which he wore rather far
+back on his head.  By this single sign, one might have recognized
+Cassidy, who had had Mary Turner in his charge on the occasion of
+her ill-fated visit to Edward Gilder's office, four years before,
+though now the man had thickened somewhat, and his ruddy face was
+grown even coarser.
+
+"Hello, Joe!" he cried, familiarly.  "Hello, Aggie!" 
+
+The light-gray eyes of the forger had narrowed perceptibly as he
+recognized the identity of the unceremonious caller, while the
+lines of his firmly set mouth took on an added fixity.
+
+"Well?"  he demanded.  His voice was emotionless.
+
+"Just a little friendly call," Cassidy announced, in his strident
+voice.  "Where's the lady of the house?" 
+
+"Out."  It was Aggie who spoke, very sharply.
+
+"Well, Joe," Cassidy went on, without paying further heed to the
+girl for a moment, "when she comes back, just tell her it's up to
+her to make a get-away, and to make it quick."
+
+But Aggie was not one to be ignored under any circumstances. 
+Now, she spoke with some acerbity in her voice, which could at
+will be wondrous soft and low.
+
+"Say!" she retorted viciously, "you can't throw any scare into
+us.  You hadn't got anything on us.  See?" 
+
+Cassidy, in response to this outburst, favored the girl with a
+long stare, and there was hearty amusement in his tones as he
+answered.
+
+"Nothing on you, eh?  Well, well, let's see."  He regarded Garson
+with a grin.  "You are Joe Garson, forger."  As he spoke, the
+detective took a note-book from a pocket, found a page, and then
+read: "First arrested in 1891, for forging the name of Edwin
+Goodsell to a check for ten thousand dollars.  Again arrested
+June 19, 1893, for forgery.  Arrested in April, 1898, for forging
+the signature of Oscar Hemmenway to a series of bonds that were
+counterfeit.  Arrested as the man back of the Reilly gang, in
+1903.  Arrested in 1908 for forgery."
+
+There was no change in the face or pose of the man who listened
+to the reading.  When it was done, and the officer looked up with
+a resumption of his triumphant grin, Garson spoke quietly.
+
+"Haven't any records of convictions, have you?" 
+
+The grin died, and a snarl sprang in its stead.
+
+"No," he snapped, vindictively.  "But we've got the right dope on
+you, all right, Joe Garson."  He turned savagely on the girl, who
+now had regained her usual expression of demure innocence, but
+with her rather too heavy brows drawn a little lower than their
+wont, under the influence of an emotion otherwise concealed.
+
+"And you're little Aggie Lynch," Cassidy declared, as he thrust
+the note-book back into his pocket.  "Just now, you're posing as
+Mary Turner's cousin.  You served two years in Burnsing for
+blackmail.  You were arrested in Buffalo, convicted, and served
+your stretch. Nothing on you?  Well, well!" Again there was
+triumph in the officer's chuckle.
+
+Aggie showed no least sign of perturbation in the face of this
+revelation of her unsavory record.  Only an expression of
+half-incredulous wonder and delight beamed from her widely opened
+blue eyes and was emphasized in the rounding of the little mouth.
+
+"Why," she cried, and now there was softness enough in the cooing
+notes, "my Gawd! It looks as though you had actually been
+workin'!" 
+
+The sarcasm was without effect on the dull sensibilities of the
+officer.  He went on speaking with obvious enjoyment of the
+extent to which his knowledge reached.
+
+"And the head of the gang is Mary Turner.  Arrested four years
+ago for robbing the Emporium.  Did her stretch of three years."
+
+"Is that all you've got about her?"  Garson demanded, with such
+abruptness that Cassidy forgot his dignity sufficiently to answer
+with an unqualified yes.
+
+The forger continued speaking rapidly, and now there was an
+undercurrent of feeling in his voice.
+
+"Nothing in your record of her about her coming out without a
+friend in the world, and trying to go straight?  You ain't got
+nothing in that pretty little book of your'n about your going to
+the millinery store where she finally got a job, and tipping them
+off to where she come from?" 
+
+"Sure, they was tipped off," Cassidy answered, quite unmoved. 
+And he added, swelling visibly with importance: "We got to
+protect the city."
+
+"Got anything in that record of your'n," Garson went on
+venomously, "about her getting another job, and your following
+her up again, and having her thrown out?  Got it there about the
+letter you had old Gilder write, so that his influence would get
+her canned?" 
+
+"Oh, we had her right the first time," Cassidy admitted,
+complacently.
+
+Then, the bitterness of Garson's soul was revealed by the
+fierceness in his voice as he replied.
+
+"You did not! She was railroaded for a job she never done.  She
+went in honest, and she came out honest."
+
+The detective indulged himself in a cackle of sneering merriment.
+
+"And that's why she's here now with a gang of crooks," he
+retorted.
+
+Garson met the implication fairly.
+
+"Where else should she be?"  he demanded, violently. "You ain't
+got nothing in that record about my jumping into the river after
+her?"  The forger's voice deepened and trembled with the
+intensity of his emotion, which was now grown so strong that any
+who listened and looked might guess something of the truth as to
+his feeling toward this woman of whom he spoke.  "That's where I
+found her--a girl that never done nobody any harm, starving
+because you police wouldn't give her a chance to work.  In the
+river because she wouldn't take the only other way that was left
+her to make a living, because she was keeping straight!... Have
+you got any of that in your book?" 
+
+Cassidy, who had been scowling in the face of this arraignment,
+suddenly gave vent to a croaking laugh of derision.
+
+"Huh!" he said, contemptuously.  "I guess you're stuck on her,
+eh?" 
+
+At the words, an instantaneous change swept over Garson. 
+Hitherto, he had been tense, his face set with emotion, a man
+strong and sullen, with eyes as clear and heartless as those of a
+beast in the wild.  Now, without warning, a startling
+transformation was wrought.  His form stiffened to rigidity after
+one lightning-swift step forward, and his face grayed.  The eyes
+glowed with the fires of a man's heart in a spasm of hate.  He
+was the embodiment of rage, as he spoke huskily, his voice a
+whisper that was yet louder than any shout.
+
+"Cut that!" 
+
+The eyes of the two men locked.  Cassidy struggled with all his
+pride against the dominant fury this man hurled on him.
+
+"What?"  he demanded, blusteringly.  But his tone was weaker than
+its wont.
+
+"I mean," Garson repeated, and there was finality in his accents,
+a deadly quality that was appalling, "I mean, cut it out--now,
+here, and all the time! It don't go!" The voice rose slightly. 
+The effect of it was more penetrant than a scream.  "It don't
+go!... Do you get me?" 
+
+There was a short interval of silence, then the officer's eyes at
+last fell.  It was Aggie who relieved the tension of the scene.
+
+"He's got you," she remarked, airily.  "Oi, oi! He's got you!" 
+
+There were again a few seconds of pause, and then Cassidy made an
+observation that revealed in some measure the shock of the
+experience he had just undergone.
+
+"You would have been a big man, Joe, if it hadn't been for that
+temper of yours.  It's got you into trouble once or twice
+already.  Some time it's likely to prove your finish."
+
+Garson relaxed his immobility, and a little color crept into his
+cheeks.
+
+"That's my business," he responded, dully.
+
+"Anyway," the officer went on, with a new confidence, now that
+his eyes were free from the gaze that had burned into his soul,
+"you've got to clear out, the whole gang of you--and do it
+quick."
+
+Aggie, who as a matter of fact began to feel that she was not
+receiving her due share of attention, now interposed, moving
+forward till her face was close to the detective's.
+
+"We don't scare worth a cent," she snapped, with the virulence of
+a vixen.  "You can't do anything to us. We ain't broke the law." 
+There came a sudden ripple of laughter, and the charming lips
+curved joyously, as she added: "Though perhaps we have bent it a
+bit."
+
+Cassidy sneered, outraged by such impudence on the part of an
+ex-convict.
+
+"Don't make no difference what you've done," he growled.  "Gee!"
+he went on, with a heavy sneer.  "But things are coming to a
+pretty pass when a gang of crooks gets to arguing about their
+rights.  That's funny, that is!" 
+
+"Then laugh!" Aggie exclaimed, insolently, and made a face at the
+officer.  "Ha, ha, ha!" 
+
+"Well, you've got the tip," Cassidy returned, somewhat
+disconcerted, after a stolid fashion of his own. "It's up to you
+to take it, that's all.  If you don't, one of you will make a
+long visit with some people out of town, and it'll probably be
+Mary.  Remember, I'm giving it to you straight."
+
+Aggie assumed her formal society manner, exaggerated to the point
+of extravagance.
+
+"Do come again, little one," she chirruped, caressingly. "I've
+enjoyed your visit so much!" 
+
+But Cassidy paid no apparent attention to her frivolousness; only
+turned and went noisily out of the drawing-room, offering no
+return to her daintily inflected good-afternoon.
+
+For her own part, as she heard the outer door close behind the
+detective, Aggie's expression grew vicious, and the heavy brows
+drew very low, until the level line almost made her prettiness
+vanish.
+
+"The truck-horse detective!" she sneered.  "An eighteen collar,
+and a six-and-a-half hat! He sure had his nerve, trying to bluff
+us!" 
+
+But it was plain that Garson was of another mood. There was
+anxiety in his face, as he stood staring vaguely out of the
+window.
+
+"Perhaps it wasn't a bluff, Aggie," he suggested.
+
+"Well, what have we done, I'd like to know?"  the girl demanded,
+confidently.  She took a cigarette and a match from the tabouret
+beside her, and stretched her feet comfortably, if very
+inelegantly, on a chair opposite.
+
+Garson answered with a note of weariness that was unlike him.
+
+"It ain't what you have done," he said, quietly.  "It's what they
+can make a jury think you've done.  And, once they set out to get
+you--God, how they can frame things! If they ever start out after
+Mary----" He did not finish the sentence, but sank down into his
+chair with a groan that was almost of despair.
+
+The girl replied with a burst of careless laughter.
+
+"Joe," she said gaily, "you're one grand little forger, all
+right, all right.  But Mary's got the brains.  Pooh, I'll string
+along with her as far as she wants to go. She's educated, she is. 
+She ain't like you and me, Joe. She talks like a lady, and,
+what's a damned sight harder, she acts like a lady.  I guess I
+know.  Wake me up any old night and ask me--just ask me, that's
+all.  She's been tryin' to make a lady out of me!" 
+
+The vivaciousness of the girl distracted the man for the moment
+from the gloom of his thoughts, and he turned to survey the
+speaker with a cynical amusement.
+
+"Swell chance!" he commented, drily.
+
+"Oh, I'm not so worse! Just you watch out."  The lively girl
+sprang up, discarded the cigarette, adjusted an imaginary train,
+and spoke lispingly in a society manner much more moderate and
+convincing than that with which she had favored the retiring
+Cassidy.  Voice, pose and gesture proclaimed at least the
+excellent mimic.
+
+"How do you do, Mrs. Jones! So good of you to call!... My dear
+Miss Smith, this is indeed a pleasure."  She seated herself
+again, quite primly now, and moved her hands over the tabouret
+appropriately to her words.  "One lump, or two?... Yes, I just
+love bridge.  No, I don't play," she continued, simpering; "but,
+just the same, I love it."  With this absurd ending, Aggie again
+arranged her feet according to her liking on the opposite chair. 
+"That's the kind of stuff she's had me doing," she rattled on in
+her coarser voice, "and believe me, Joe, it's damned near killing
+me.  But all the same," she hurried on, with a swift revulsion of
+mood to the former serious topic, "I'm for Mary strong! You stick
+to her, Joe, and you'll wear diamon's.... And that reminds me! I
+wish she'd let me wear mine, but she won't.  She says they're
+vulgar for an innocent country girl like her cousin, Agnes Lynch. 
+Ain't that fierce?... How can anything be vulgar that's worth a
+hundred and fifty a carat?" 
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. A LEGAL DOCUMENT. 
+
+Mary Turner spent less than an hour in that mysteriously
+important engagement with Dick Gilder, of which she had spoken to
+Aggie.  After separating from the young man, she went alone down
+Broadway, walking the few blocks of distance to Sigismund
+Harris's office.  On a corner, her attention was caught by the
+forlorn face of a girl crossing into the side street.  A closer
+glance showed that the privation of the gaunt features was
+emphasized by the scant garments, almost in tatters.  Instantly,
+Mary's quick sympathies were aroused, the more particularly since
+the wretched child seemed of about the age she herself had been
+when her great suffering had befallen.  So, turning aside, she
+soon caught up with the girl and spoke an inquiry.
+
+It was the familiar story, a father out of work, a sick mother, a
+brood of hungry children.  Some confused words of distress
+revealed the fact that the wobegone girl was even then fighting
+the final battle of purity against starvation.  That she still
+fought on in such case proved enough as to her decency of nature,
+wholesome despite squalid surroundings.  Mary's heart was deeply
+moved, and her words of comfort came with a simple sincerity that
+was like new life to the sorely beset waif.  She promised to
+interest herself in securing employment for the father, such care
+as the mother and children might need, along with a proper
+situation for the girl herself.  In evidence of her purpose, she
+took her engagement-book from her bag, and set down the street
+and number of the East Side tenement where the family possessed
+the one room that mocked the word home, and she gave a banknote
+to the girl to serve the immediate needs.
+
+When she went back to resume her progress down Broadway, Mary
+felt herself vastly cheered by the warm glow within, which is the
+reward of a kindly act, gratefully received.  And, on this
+particular morning, she craved such assuagement of her spirit,
+for the conscience that, in spite of all her misdeeds, still
+lived was struggling within her.  In her revolt against a world
+that had wantonly inflicted on her the worst torments, Mary
+Turner had thought that she might safely disregard those
+principles in which she had been so carefully reared.  She had
+believed that by the deliberate adoption of a life of guile
+within limits allowed by the law, she would find solace for her
+wants, while feeling that thus she avenged herself in some slight
+measure for the indignities she had undergone unjustly.  Yet, as
+the days passed, days of success as far as her scheming was
+concerned, this brilliant woman, who had tried to deem herself
+unscrupulous, found that lawlessness within the law failed to
+satisfy something deep within her soul.  The righteousness that
+was her instinct was offended by the triumphs achieved through so
+devious devices, though she resolutely set her will to suppress
+any spiritual rebellion.
+
+There was, as well, another grievance of her nature, yet more
+subtle, infinitely more painful.  This lay in her craving for
+tenderness.  She was wholly woman, notwithstanding the virility
+of her intelligence, its audacity, its aggressiveness.  She had a
+heart yearning for the multitudinous affections that are the
+prerogative of the feminine; she had a heart longing for love, to
+receive and to give in full measure.... And her life was barren. 
+Since the death of her father, there had been none on whom she
+could lavish the great gifts of her tenderness.  Through the days
+of her working in the store, circumstances had shut her out from
+all association with others congenial.  No need to rehearse the
+impossibilities of companionship in the prison life. Since then,
+the situation had not vitally improved, in spite of her better
+worldly condition.  For Garson, who had saved her from death, she
+felt a strong and lasting gratitude--nothing that relieved the
+longing for nobler affections.  There was none other with whom
+she had any intimacy except that, of a sort, with Aggie Lynch,
+and by no possibility could the adventuress serve as an object of
+deep regard.  The girl was amusing enough, and, indeed, a most
+likable person at her best.  But she was, after all, a
+shallow-pated individual, without a shred of principle of any
+sort whatsoever, save the single merit of unswerving loyalty to
+her "pals."  Mary cherished a certain warm kindliness for the
+first woman who had befriended her in any way, but beyond this
+there was no finer feeling.
+
+Nevertheless, it is not quite accurate to say that Mary Turner
+had had no intimacy in which her heart might have been seriously
+engaged.  In one instance, of recent happening, she had been much
+in association with a young man who was of excellent standing in
+the world, who was of good birth, good education, of delightful
+manners, and, too, wholesome and agreeable beyond the most of his
+class.  This was Dick Gilder, and, since her companionship with
+him, Mary had undergone a revulsion greater than ever before
+against the fate thrust on her, which now at last she had chosen
+to welcome and nourish by acquiescence as best she might.
+
+Of course, she could not waste tenderness on this man, for she
+had deliberately set out to make him the instrument of her
+vengeance against his father.  For that very reason, she suffered
+much from a conscience newly clamorous.  Never for an instant did
+she hesitate in her long-cherished plan of revenge against the
+one who had brought ruin on her life, yet, through all her
+satisfaction before the prospect of final victory after continued
+delay, there ran the secret, inescapable sorrow over the fact
+that she must employ this means to attain her end.  She had no
+thought of weakening, but the better spirit within her warred
+against the lust to repay an eye for an eye.  It was the new
+Gospel against the old Law, and the fierceness of the struggle
+rent her. Just now, the doing of the kindly act seemed somehow to
+gratify not only her maternal instinct toward service of love,
+but, too, to muffle for a little the rebuking voice of her inmost
+soul.
+
+So she went her way more at ease, more nearly content again with
+herself and with her system of living. Indeed, as she was shown
+into the private office of the ingenious interpreter of the law,
+there was not a hint of any trouble beneath the bright mask of
+her beauty, radiantly smiling.
+
+Harris regarded his client with an appreciative eye, as he bowed
+in greeting, and invited her to a seat.  The lawyer was a man of
+fine physique, with a splendid face of the best Semitic type, in
+which were large, dark, sparkling eyes--eyes a Lombroso perhaps
+might have judged rather too closely set.  As a matter of fact,
+Harris had suffered a flagrant injustice in his own life from a
+suspicion of wrong-doing which he had not merited by any act. 
+This had caused him a loss of prestige in his profession.  He
+presently adopted the wily suggestion of the adage, that it is
+well to have the game if you have the name, and he resolutely set
+himself to the task of making as much money as possible by any
+means convenient.  Mary Turner as a client delighted his heart,
+both because of the novelty of her ideas and for the munificence
+of the fees which she ungrudgingly paid with never a protest. 
+So, as he beamed on her now, and spoke a compliment, it was
+rather the lawyer than the man that was moved to admiration.
+
+"Why, Miss Turner, how charming!" he declared, smiling.  "Really,
+my dear young lady, you look positively bridal."
+
+"Oh, do you think so?"  Mary rejoined, with a whimsical pout, as
+she seated herself.  For the moment her air became distrait, but
+she quickly regained her poise, as the lawyer, who had dropped
+back into his chair behind the desk, went on speaking.  His tone
+now was crisply business-like.
+
+"I sent your cousin, Miss Agnes Lynch, the release which she is
+to sign," he explained, "when she gets that money from General
+Hastings.  I wish you'd look it over, when you have time to
+spare.  It's all right, I'm sure, but I confess that I appreciate
+your opinion of things, Miss Turner, even of legal
+documents--yes, indeed, I do!--perhaps particularly of legal
+documents."
+
+"Thank you," Mary said, evidently a little gratified by the frank
+praise of the learned gentleman for her abilities.  "And have you
+heard from them yet?"  she inquired.
+
+"No," the lawyer replied.  "I gave them until to-morrow.  If I
+don't hear then, I shall start suit at once."  Then the lawyer's
+manner became unusually bland and self-satisfied as he opened a
+drawer of the desk and brought forth a rather
+formidable-appearing document, bearing a most impressive seal. 
+"You will be glad to know," he went on unctuously, "that I was
+entirely successful in carrying out that idea of yours as to the
+injunction.  My dear Miss Turner," he went on with florid
+compliment, "Portia was a squawking baby, compared with you."
+
+"Thank you again," Mary answered, as she took the legal paper
+which he held outstretched toward her. Her scarlet lips were
+curved happily, and the clear oval of her cheeks blossomed to a
+deeper rose.  For a moment, her glance ran over the words of the
+page.  Then she looked up at the lawyer, and there were new
+lusters in the violet eyes.
+
+"It's splendid," she declared.  "Did you have much trouble in
+getting it?" 
+
+Harris permitted himself the indulgence of an unprofessional
+chuckle of keenest amusement before he answered.
+
+"Why, no!" he declared, with reminiscent enjoyment in his manner. 
+"That is, not really!" There was an enormous complacency in his
+air over the event.  "But, at the outset, when I made the
+request, the judge just naturally nearly fell off the bench. 
+Then, I showed him that Detroit case, to which you had drawn my
+attention, and the upshot of it all was that he gave me what I
+wanted without a whimper.  He couldn't help himself, you know. 
+That's the long and the short of it."
+
+That mysterious document with the imposing seal, the request for
+which had nearly caused a judge to fall off the bench, reposed
+safely in Mary's bag when she, returned to the apartment after
+the visit to the lawyer's office.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. MARKED MONEY. 
+
+Mary had scarcely received from Aggie an account of Cassidy's
+threatening invasion, when the maid announced that Mr. Irwin had
+called.
+
+"Show him in, in just two minutes," Mary directed.
+
+"Who's the gink?"  Aggie demanded, with that slangy diction which
+was her habit.
+
+"You ought to know," Mary returned, smiling a little. "He's the
+lawyer retained by General Hastings in the matter of a certain
+breach-of-promise suit."
+
+"Oh, you mean yours truly," Aggie exclaimed, not in the least
+abashed by her forgetfulness in an affair that concerned herself
+so closely.  "Hope he's brought the money.  What about it?" 
+
+"Leave the room now," Mary ordered, crisply. "When I call to you,
+come in, but be sure and leave everything to me.  Merely follow
+my lead.  And, Agnes--be very ingenue."
+
+"Oh, I'm wise--I'm wise," Aggie nodded, as she hurried out toward
+her bedroom.  "I'll be a squab--surest thing you know!" 
+
+Next moment, Mary gave a formal greeting to the lawyer who
+represented the man she planned to mulct effectively, and invited
+him to a chair near her, while she herself retained her place at
+the desk, within a drawer of which she had just locked the
+formidable-appearing document received from Harris.
+
+Irwin lost no time in coming to the point.
+
+"I called in reference to this suit, which Miss Agnes Lynch
+threatens to bring against my client, General Hastings."
+
+Mary regarded the attorney with a level glance, serenely
+expressionless as far as could be achieved by eyes so clear and
+shining, and her voice was cold as she replied with significant
+brusqueness.
+
+"It's not a threat, Mr. Irwin.  The suit will be brought."
+
+The lawyer frowned, and there was a strident note in his voice
+when he answered, meeting her glance with an uncompromising stare
+of hostility.
+
+"You realize, of course," he said finally, "that this is merely
+plain blackmail."
+
+There was not the change of a feature in the face of the woman
+who listened to the accusation.  Her eyes steadfastly retained
+their clear gaze into his; her voice was still coldly formal, as
+before.
+
+"If it's blackmail, Mr. Irwin, why don't you consult the police?" 
+she inquired, with manifest disdain.  Mary turned to the maid,
+who now entered in response to the bell she had sounded a minute
+before.  "Fanny, will you ask Miss Lynch to come in, please?" 
+Then she faced the lawyer again, with an aloofness of manner that
+was contemptuous.  "Really, Mr. Irwin," she drawled, "why don't
+you take this matter to the police?" 
+
+The reply was uttered with conspicuous exasperation.
+
+"You know perfectly well," the lawyer said bitterly, "that
+General Hastings cannot afford such publicity. His position would
+be jeopardized."
+
+"Oh, as for that," Mary suggested evenly, and now there was a
+trace of flippancy in her fashion of speaking, "I'm sure the
+police would keep your complaint a secret. Really, you know, Mr.
+Irwin, I think you had better take your troubles to the police,
+rather than to me. You will get much more sympathy from them."
+
+The lawyer sprang up, with an air of sudden determination.
+
+"Very well, I will then," he declared, sternly.  "I will!" 
+
+Mary, from her vantage point at the desk across from him, smiled
+a smile that would have been very engaging to any man under more
+favorable circumstances, and she pushed in his direction the
+telephone that stood there.
+
+"3100, Spring," she remarked, encouragingly, "will bring an
+officer almost immediately."  She leaned back in her chair, and
+surveyed the baffled man amusedly.
+
+The lawyer was furious over the failure of his effort to
+intimidate this extraordinarily self-possessed young woman, who
+made a mock of his every thrust.  But he was by no means at the
+end of his resources.
+
+"Nevertheless," he rejoined, "you know perfectly well that
+General Hastings never promised to marry this girl.  You
+know----" He broke off as Aggie entered the drawing-room,
+
+Now, the girl was demure in seeming almost beyond belief, a
+childish creature, very fair and dainty, guileless surely, with
+those untroubled eyes of blue, those softly curving lips of
+warmest red and the more delicate bloom in the rounded cheeks. 
+There were the charms of innocence and simplicity in the manner
+of her as she stopped just within the doorway, whence she
+regarded Mary with a timid, pleading gaze, her slender little
+form poised lightly as if for flight
+
+"Did you want me, dear?"  she asked.  There was something
+half-plaintive in the modulated cadences of the query.
+
+"Agnes," Mary answered affectionately, "this is Mr. Irwin, who
+has come to see you in behalf of General Hastings."
+
+"Oh!" the girl murmured, her voice quivering a little, as the
+lawyer, after a short nod, dropped again into his seat; "oh, I'm
+so frightened!" She hurried, fluttering, to a low stool behind
+the desk, beside Mary's chair, and there she sank down, drooping
+slightly, and catching hold of one of Mary's hands as if in mute
+pleading for protection against the fear that beset her chaste
+soul.
+
+"Nonsense!" Mary exclaimed, soothingly.  "There's really nothing
+at all to be frightened about, my dear child."  Her voice was
+that with which one seeks to cajole a terrified infant.  "You
+mustn't be afraid, Agnes. Mr. Irwin says that General Hastings
+did not promise to marry you.  Of course, you understand, my
+dear, that under no circumstances must you say anything that
+isn't strictly true, and that, if he did not promise to marry
+you, you have no case--none at all.  Now, Agnes, tell me: did
+General Hastings promise to marry you?" 
+
+"Oh, yes--oh, yes, indeed!" Aggie cried, falteringly. "And I wish
+he would.  He's such a delightful old gentleman!" As she spoke,
+the girl let go Mary's hand and clasped her own together
+ecstatically.
+
+The legal representative of the delightful old gentleman scowled
+disgustedly at this outburst.  His voice was portentous, as he
+put a question.
+
+"Was that promise made in writing?" 
+
+"No," Aggie answered, gushingly.  "But all his letters were in
+writing, you know.  Such wonderful letters!" She raised her blue
+eyes toward the ceiling in a naive rapture.  "So tender, and
+so--er--interesting!" Somehow, the inflection on the last word
+did not altogether suggest the ingenuous.
+
+"Yes, yes, I dare say," Irwin agreed, hastily, with some
+evidences of chagrin.  He had no intention of dwelling on that
+feature of the letters, concerning which he had no doubt
+whatsoever, since he knew the amorous General very well indeed. 
+They would be interesting, beyond shadow of questioning, horribly
+interesting. Such was the confessed opinion of the swain himself
+who had written them in his folly--horribly interesting to all
+the reading public of the country, since the General was a
+conspicuous figure.
+
+Mary intervened with a suavity that infuriated the lawyer almost
+beyond endurance.
+
+"But you're quite sure, Agnes," she questioned gently, "that
+General Hastings did promise to marry you?"  The candor of her
+manner was perfect.
+
+And the answer of Aggie was given with a like convincing
+emphasis.
+
+"Oh, yes!" she declared, tensely.  "Why, I would swear to it." 
+The limpid eyes, so appealing in their soft lusters, went first
+to Mary, then gazed trustingly into those of the routed attorney.
+
+"You see, Mr. Irwin, she would swear to that," emphasized Mary.
+
+"We're beaten," he confessed, dejectedly, turning his glance
+toward Mary, whom, plainly, he regarded as his real adversary in
+the combat on his client's behalf. "I'm going to be quite frank
+with you, Miss Turner, quite frank," he stated with more
+geniality, though with a very crestfallen air.  Somehow, indeed,
+there was just a shade too much of the crestfallen in the fashion
+of his utterance, and the woman whom he addressed watched warily
+as he continued.  "We can't afford any scandal, so we're going to
+settle at your own terms."  He paused expectantly, but Mary
+offered no comment; only maintained her alert scrutiny of the
+man.  The lawyer, therefore, leaned forward with a semblance of
+frank eagerness.  Instantly, Aggie had become agog with greedily
+blissful anticipations, and she uttered a slight ejaculation of
+joy; but Irwin paid no heed to her. He was occupied in taking
+from his pocket a thick bill-case, and from this presently a
+sheaf of banknotes, which he laid on the desk before Mary, with a
+little laugh of discomfiture over having been beaten in the
+contest.
+
+As he did so, Aggie thrust forth an avaricious hand, but it was
+caught and held by Mary before it reached above the top of the
+desk, and the avaricious gesture passed unobserved by the
+attorney.
+
+"We can't fight where ladies are concerned," he went on,
+assuming, as best he might contrive, a chivalrous tone.  "So, if
+you will just hand over General Hastings' letters, why, here's
+your money."
+
+Much to the speaker's surprise, there followed an interval of
+silence, and his puzzlement showed in the knitting of his brows. 
+"You have the letters, haven't you?"  he demanded, abruptly.
+
+Aggie coyly took a thick bundle from its resting place on her
+rounded bosom.
+
+"They never leave me," she murmured, with dulcet passion.  There
+was in her voice a suggestion of desolation--a desolation that
+was the blighting effect of letting the cherished missives go
+from her.
+
+"Well, they can leave you now, all right," the lawyer remarked
+unsympathetically, but with returning cheerfulness, since he saw
+the end of his quest in visible form before him.  He reached
+quickly forward for the packet, which Aggie extended willingly
+enough.  But it was Mary who, with a swift movement, caught and
+held it.
+
+"Not quite yet, Mr. Irwin, I'm afraid," she said, calmly.
+
+The lawyer barely suppressed a violent ejaculation of annoyance.
+
+"But there's the money waiting for you," he protested,
+indignantly.
+
+The rejoinder from Mary was spoken with great deliberation, yet
+with a note of determination that caused a quick and acute
+anxiety to the General's representative.
+
+"I think," Mary explained tranquilly, "that you had better see
+our lawyer, Mr. Harris, in reference to this. We women know
+nothing of such details of business settlement."
+
+"Oh, there's no need for all that formality," Irwin urged, with a
+great appearance of bland friendliness.
+
+"Just the same," Mary persisted, unimpressed, "I'm quite sure you
+would better see Mr. Harris first."  There was a cadence of
+insistence in her voice that assured the lawyer as to the
+futility of further pretense on his part.
+
+"Oh, I see," he said disagreeably, with a frown to indicate his
+complete sagacity in the premises.
+
+"I thought you would, Mr. Irwin," Mary returned, and now she
+smiled in a kindly manner, which, nevertheless, gave no pleasure
+to the chagrined man before her.  As he rose, she went on
+crisply: "If you'll take the money to Mr. Harris, Miss Lynch will
+meet you in his office at four o'clock this afternoon, and, when
+her suit for damages for breach of promise has been legally
+settled out of court, you will get the letters....
+Good-afternoon, Mr. Irwin."
+
+The lawyer made a hurried bow which took in both of the women,
+and walked quickly toward the door.  But he was arrested before
+he reached it by the voice of Mary, speaking again, still in that
+imperturbable evenness which so rasped his nerves, for all its
+mellow resonance.  But this time there was a sting, of the
+sharpest, in the words themselves.
+
+"Oh, you forgot your marked money, Mr. Irwin," Mary said.
+
+The lawyer wheeled, and stood staring at the speaker with a
+certain sheepishness of expression that bore witness to the
+completeness of his discomfiture.  Without a word, after a long
+moment in which he perceived intently the delicate, yet subtly
+energetic, loveliness of this slender woman, he walked back to
+the desk, picked up the money, and restored it to the bill-case. 
+This done, at last he spoke, with a new respect in his voice, a
+quizzical smile on his rather thin lips.
+
+"Young woman," he said emphatically, "you ought to have been a
+lawyer."  And with that laudatory confession of her skill, he
+finally took his departure, while Mary smiled in a triumph she
+was at no pains to conceal, and Aggie sat gaping astonishment
+over the surprising turn of events.
+
+It was the latter volatile person who ended the silence that
+followed on the lawyer's going.
+
+"You've darn near broke my heart," she cried, bouncing up
+violently, "letting all that money go out of the house.... Say,
+how did you know it was marked?" 
+
+"I didn't," Mary replied, blandly; "but it was a pretty good
+guess, wasn't it?  Couldn't you see that all he wanted was to get
+the letters, and have us take the marked money?  Then, my simple
+young friend, we would have been arrested very neatly indeed--for
+blackmail."
+
+Aggie's innocent eyes rounded in an amazed consternation, which
+was not at all assumed.
+
+"Gee!" she cried.  "That would have been fierce! And now?"  she
+questioned, apprehensively.
+
+Mary's answer repudiated any possibility of fear.
+
+"And now," she explained contentedly, "he really will go to our
+lawyer.  There, he will pay over that same marked money.  Then,
+he will get the letters he wants so much.  And, just because it's
+a strictly business transaction between two lawyers, with
+everything done according to legal ethics----"
+
+"What's legal ethics?"  Aggie demanded, impetuously. "They sound
+some tasty!" With the comment, she dropped weakly into a chair.
+
+Mary laughed in care-free enjoyment, as well she might after
+winning the victory in such a battle of wits.
+
+"Oh," she said, happily, "you just get it legally, and you get
+twice as much!" 
+
+"And it's actually the same old game!" Aggie mused. She was doing
+her best to get a clear understanding of the matter, though to
+her it was all a mystery most esoteric.
+
+Mary reviewed the case succinctly for the other's enlightenment.
+
+"Yes, it's the same game precisely," she affirmed. "A shameless
+old roue makes love to you, and he writes you a stack of silly
+letters."
+
+The pouting lips of the listener took on a pathetic droop, and
+her voice quivered as she spoke with an effective semblance of
+virginal terror.
+
+"He might have ruined my life!" 
+
+Mary continued without giving much attention to these
+histrionics.
+
+"If you had asked him for all this money for the return of his
+letters, it would have been blackmail, and we'd have gone to jail
+in all human probability.  But we did no such thing--no, indeed!
+What we did wasn't anything like that in the eyes of the law. 
+What we did was merely to have your lawyer take steps toward a
+suit for damages for breach of promise of marriage for the sum of
+ten thousand dollars. Then, his lawyer appears in behalf of
+General Hastings, and there follow a number of conferences
+between the legal representatives of the opposing parties. By
+means of these conferences, the two legal gentlemen run up very
+respectable bills of expenses.  In the end, we get our ten
+thousand dollars, and the flighty old General gets back his
+letters...  .  My dear," Mary concluded vaingloriously, "we're
+inside the law, and so we're perfectly safe.  And there you are!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. THE THIEF. 
+
+Mary remained in joyous spirits after her victorious matching of
+brains against a lawyer of high standing in his profession.  For
+the time being, conscience was muted by gratified ambition.  Her
+thoughts just then were far from the miseries of the past, with
+their evil train of consequences in the present.  But that past
+was soon to be recalled to her with a vividness most terrible.
+
+She had entered the telephone-booth, which she had caused to be
+installed out of an extra closet of her bedroom for the sake of
+greater privacy on occasion, and it was during her absence from
+the drawing-room that Garson again came into the apartment,
+seeking her.  On being told by Aggie as to Mary's whereabouts, he
+sat down to await her return, listening without much interest to
+the chatter of the adventuress.... It was just then that the maid
+appeared.
+
+"There's a girl wants to see Miss Turner," she explained.
+
+The irrepressible Aggie put on her most finically elegant air.
+
+"Has she a card?"  she inquired haughtily, while the maid
+tittered appreciation.
+
+"No," was the answer.  "But she says it's important. I guess the
+poor thing's in hard luck, from the look of her," the kindly
+Fannie added.
+
+"Oh, then she'll be welcome, of course," Aggie declared, and
+Garson nodded in acquiescence.  "Tell her to come in and wait,
+Fannie.  Miss Turner will be here right away."  She turned to
+Garson as the maid left the room.  "Mary sure is an easy boob,"
+she remarked, cheerfully.  "Bless her soft heart!" 
+
+A curiously gentle smile of appreciation softened the immobility
+of the forger's face as he again nodded assent.
+
+"We might just as well pipe off the skirt before Mary gets here,"
+Aggie suggested, with eagerness.
+
+A minute later, a girl perhaps twenty years of age stepped just
+within the doorway, and stood there with eyes downcast, after one
+swift, furtive glance about her. Her whole appearance was that of
+dejection.  Her soiled black gown, the cringing posture, the
+pallor of her face, proclaimed the abject misery of her state.
+
+Aggie, who was not exuberant in her sympathies for any one other
+than herself, addressed the newcomer with a patronizing
+inflection, modulated in her best manner.
+
+"Won't you come in, please?"  she requested.
+
+The shrinking girl shot another veiled look in the direction of
+the speaker.
+
+"Are you Miss Turner?"  she asked, in a voice broken by nervous
+dismay.
+
+"Really, I am very sorry," Aggie replied, primly; "but I am only
+her cousin, Miss Agnes Lynch.  But Miss Turner is likely to be
+back any minute now."
+
+"Can I wait?"  came the timid question.
+
+"Certainly," Aggie answered, hospitably.  "Please sit down."
+
+As the girl obediently sank down on the nearest chair, Garson
+addressed her sharply, so that the visitor started uneasily at
+the unexpected sound.
+
+"You don't know Miss Turner?" 
+
+"No," came the faint reply.
+
+"Then, what do you want to see her about?" 
+
+There was a brief pause before the girl could pluck up courage
+enough for an answer.  Then, it was spoken confusedly, almost in
+a whisper.
+
+"She once helped a girl friend of mine, and I thought--I
+thought----"
+
+"You thought she might help you," Garson interrupted.
+
+But Aggie, too, possessed some perceptive powers, despite the
+fact that she preferred to use them little in ordinary affairs.
+
+"You have been in stir--prison, I mean."  She hastily corrected
+the lapse into underworld slang.
+
+Came a distressed muttering of assent from the girl.
+
+"How sad!" Aggie remarked, in a voice of shocked pity for one so
+inconceivably unfortunate.  "How very, very sad!" 
+
+This ingenuous method of diversion was put to an end by the
+entrance of Mary, who stopped short on seeing the limp figure
+huddled in the chair.
+
+"A visitor, Agnes?"  she inquired.
+
+At the sound of her voice, and before Aggie could hit on a
+fittingly elegant form of reply, the girl looked up.  And now,
+for the first time, she spoke with some degree of energy, albeit
+there was a sinister undertone in the husky voice.
+
+"You're Miss Turner?"  she questioned.
+
+"Yes," Mary said, simply.  Her words rang kindly; and she smiled
+encouragement.
+
+A gasp burst from the white lips of the girl, and she cowered as
+one stricken physically.
+
+"Mary Turner! Oh, my God! I----" She hid her face within her arms
+and sat bent until her head rested on her knees in an abasement
+of misery.
+
+Vaguely startled by the hysterical outburst from the girl, Mary's
+immediate thought was that here was a pitiful instance of one
+suffering from starvation.
+
+"Joe," she directed rapidly, "have Fannie bring a glass of milk
+with an egg and a little brandy in it, right away."
+
+The girl in the chair was shaking soundlessly under the stress of
+her emotions.  A few disjointed phrases fell from her quivering
+lips.
+
+"I didn't know--oh, I couldn't!" 
+
+"Don't try to talk just now," Mary warned, reassuringly. "Wait
+until you've had something to eat."
+
+Aggie, who had observed developments closely, now lifted her
+voice in tardy lamentations over her own stupidity.  There was no
+affectation of the fine lady in her self-reproach.
+
+"Why, the poor gawk's hungry!" she exclaimed! "And I never got
+the dope on her.  Ain't I the simp!" 
+
+The girl regained a degree of self-control, and showed something
+of forlorn dignity.
+
+"Yes," she said dully, "I'm starving."
+
+Mary regarded the afflicted creature with that sympathy born only
+of experience.
+
+"Yes," she said softly, "I understand."  Then she spoke to Aggie. 
+"Take her to my room, and let her rest there for a while.  Have
+her drink the egg and milk slowly, and then lie down for a few
+minutes anyhow."
+
+Aggie obeyed with an air of bustling activity.
+
+"Sure, I will!" she declared.  She went to the girl and helped
+her to stand up.  "We'll fix you out all right," she said,
+comfortingly.  "Come along with me.... Hungry! Gee, but that's
+tough!" 
+
+Half an hour afterward, while Mary was at her desk, giving part
+of her attention to Joe Garson, who sat near, and part to a
+rather formidable pile of neatly arranged papers, Aggie reported
+with her charge, who, though still shambling of gait, and
+stooping, showed by some faint color in her face and an increased
+steadiness of bearing that the food had already strengthened her
+much.
+
+"She would come," Aggie explained.  "I thought she ought to rest
+for a while longer anyhow."  She half-shoved the girl into a
+chair opposite the desk, in an absurd travesty on the maternal
+manner.
+
+"I'm all right, I tell you," came the querulous protest.
+
+Whereupon, Aggie gave over the uncongenial task of mothering, and
+settled herself comfortably in a chair, with her legs merely
+crossed as a compromise between ease and propriety.
+
+"Are you quite sure?"  Mary said to the girl.  And then, as the
+other nodded in assent, she spoke with a compelling kindliness. 
+"Then you must tell us all about it--this trouble of yours, you
+know.  What is your name?" 
+
+Once again the girl had recourse to the swift, searching, furtive
+glance, but her voice was colorless as she replied, listlessly:
+
+"Helen Morris."
+
+Mary regarded the girl with an expression that was inscrutable
+when she spoke again.
+
+"I don't have to ask if you have been in prison," she said
+gravely.  "Your face shows it."
+
+"I--I came out--three months ago," was the halting admission.
+
+Mary watched the shrinking figure reflectively for a long minute
+before she spoke again.  Then there was a deeper resonance in her
+voice.
+
+"And you'd made up your mind to go straight?" 
+
+"Yes."  The word was a whisper.
+
+"You were going to do what the chaplain had told you," Mary went
+on in a voice vibrant with varied emotions. "You were going to
+start all over again, weren't you?  You were going to begin a new
+life, weren't you?"  The bent head of the girl bent still lower
+in assent. There came a cynical note into Mary's utterance now.
+
+"It doesn't work very well, does it?"  she asked, bitterly.
+
+The girl gave sullen agreement.
+
+"No," she said dully; "I'm whipped."
+
+Mary's manner changed on the instant.  She spoke cheerfully for
+the first time.
+
+"Well, then," she questioned, "how would you like to work with
+us?" 
+
+The girl looked up for a second with another of her fleeting,
+stealthy glances.
+
+"You--you mean that----?" 
+
+Mary explained her intention in the matter very explicitly. Her
+voice grew boastful.
+
+"Our kind of work pays well when you know how. Look at us."
+
+Aggie welcomed the opportunity for speech, too long delayed.
+
+"Hats from Joseph's, gowns from Lucile's, and cracked ice from
+Tiffany's.  But it ain't ladylike to wear it," she concluded with
+a reproachful glance at her mentor.
+
+Mary disregarded the frivolous interruption, and went on speaking
+to the girl, and now there was something pleasantly cajoling in
+her manner.
+
+"Suppose I should stake you for the present, and put you in with
+a good crowd.  All you would have to do would be to answer
+advertisements for servant girls.  I will see that you have the
+best of references.  Then, when you get in with the right people,
+you will open the front door some night and let in the gang.  Of
+course, you will make a get-away when they do, and get your bit
+as well."
+
+There flashed still another of the swift, sly glances, and the
+lips of the girl parted as if she would speak. But she did not;
+only, her head sagged even lower on her breast, and the shrunken
+form grew yet more shrunken.  Mary, watching closely, saw these
+signs, and in the same instant a change came over her.  Where
+before there had been an underlying suggestion of hardness, there
+was now a womanly warmth of genuine sympathy.
+
+"It doesn't suit you?"  she said, very softly.  "Good! I was in
+hopes it wouldn't.  So, here's another plan."  Her voice had
+become very winning.  "Suppose you could go West--some place
+where you would have a fair chance, with money enough so you
+could live like a human being till you got a start?" 
+
+There came a tensing of the relaxed form, and the head lifted a
+little so that the girl could look at her questioner.  And, this
+time, the glance, though of the briefest, was less furtive.
+
+"I will give you that chance," Mary said simply, "if you really
+want it."
+
+That speech was like a current of strength to the wretched girl. 
+She sat suddenly erect, and her words came eagerly.
+
+"Oh, I do!" And now her hungry gaze remained fast on the face of
+the woman who offered her salvation.
+
+Mary sprang up and moved a step toward the girl who continued to
+stare at her, fascinated.  She was now all wholesome.  The memory
+of her own wrongs surged in her during this moment only to make
+her more appreciative of the blessedness of seemly life.  She was
+moved to a divine compassion over this waif for whom she might
+prove a beneficent providence.  There was profound conviction in
+the emphasis with which she spoke her warning.
+
+"Then I have just one thing to say to you first.  If you are
+going to live straight, start straight, and then go through with
+it.  Do you know what that means?" 
+
+"You mean, keep straight all the time?"  The girl spoke with a
+force drawn from the other's strength.
+
+"I mean more than that," Mary went on earnestly. "I mean, forget
+that you were ever in prison.  I don't know what you have done--I
+don't think I care.  But whatever it was, you have paid for it--a
+pretty big price, too."  Into these last words there crept the
+pathos of one who knew.  The sympathy of it stirred the listener
+to fearful memories.
+
+"I have, I have!" The thin voice broke, wailing.
+
+"Well, then," Mary went on, "just begin all over again, and be
+sure you stand up for your rights.  Don't let them make you pay a
+second time.  Go where no one knows you, and don't tell the first
+people who are kind to you that you have been crooked.  If they
+think you are straight, why, be it.  Then nobody will have any
+right to complain."  Her tone grew suddenly pleading. "Will you
+promise me this?" 
+
+"Yes, I promise," came the answer, very gravely, quickened with
+hope.
+
+"Good!" Mary exclaimed, with a smile of approval. "Wait a
+minute," she added, and left the room.
+
+"Huh! Pretty soft for some people," Aggie remarked to Garson,
+with a sniff.  She felt no alarm lest she wound the sensibilities
+of the girl.  She herself had never let delicacy interfere
+between herself and money. It was really stranger that the
+forger, who possessed a more sympathetic nature, did not scruple
+to speak an assent openly.  Somehow, he felt an inexplicable
+prejudice against this abject recipient of Mary's bounty, though
+not for the world would he have checked the generous impulse on
+the part of the woman he so revered. It was his instinct on her
+behalf that made him now vaguely uneasy, as if he sensed some
+malign influence against her there present with them.
+
+Mary returned soon.  In her hand she carried a roll of bills. 
+She went to the girl and held out the money. Her voice was
+business-like now, but very kind.
+
+"Take this.  It will pay your fare West, and keep you quite a
+while if you are careful."
+
+But, without warning, a revulsion seized on the girl. Of a
+sudden, she shrank again, and turned her head away, and her body
+trembled.
+
+"I can't take it," she stammered.  "I can't! I can't!" 
+
+Mary stood silent for a moment from sheer amazement over the
+change.  When she spoke, her voice had hardened a little.  It is
+not agreeable to have one's beneficence flouted.
+
+"Didn't you come here for help?"  she demanded.
+
+"Yes," was the faltering reply, "but--but--I didn't know--it was
+you!" The words came with a rush of desperation.
+
+"Then, you have met me before?"  Mary said, quietly.
+
+"No, no!" The girl's voice rose shrill.
+
+Aggie spoke her mind with commendable frankness.
+
+"She's lying."
+
+And, once again, Garson agreed.  His yes was spoken in a tone of
+complete certainty.  That Mary, too, was of their opinion was
+shown in her next words.
+
+"So, you have met me before?  Where?" 
+
+The girl unwittingly made confession in her halting words.
+
+"I--I can't tell you."  There was despair in her voice.
+
+"You must."  Mary spoke with severity.  She felt that this
+mystery held in it something sinister to herself. "You must," she
+repeated imperiously.
+
+The girl only crouched lower.
+
+"I can't!" she cried again.  She was panting as if in exhaustion.
+
+"Why can't you?"  Mary insisted.  She had no sympathy now for the
+girl's distress, merely a great suspicious curiosity.
+
+"Because--because----" The girl could not go on.
+
+Mary's usual shrewdness came to her aid, and she put her next
+question in a different direction.
+
+"What were you sent up for?"  she asked briskly. "Tell me."
+
+It was Garson who broke the silence that followed.
+
+"Come on, now!" he ordered.  There was a savage note in his voice
+under which the girl visibly winced. Mary made a gesture toward
+him that he should not interfere.  Nevertheless, the man's
+command had in it a threat which the girl could not resist and
+she answered, though with a reluctance that made the words seem
+dragged from her by some outside force--as indeed they were.
+
+"For stealing."
+
+"Stealing what?"  Mary said.
+
+"Goods."
+
+"Where from?" 
+
+A reply came in a breath so low that it was barely audible.
+
+"The Emporium."
+
+In a flash of intuition, the whole truth was revealed to the
+woman who stood looking down at the cowering creature before her.
+
+"The Emporium!" she repeated.  There was a tragedy in the single
+word.  Her voice grew cold with hate, the hate born of innocence
+long tortured.  "Then you are the one who----"
+
+The accusation was cut short by the girl's shriek.
+
+"I am not! I am not, I tell you."
+
+For a moment, Mary lost her poise.  Her voice rose in a flare of
+rage.
+
+"You are! You are!" 
+
+The craven spirit of the girl could struggle no more. She could
+only sit in a huddled, shaking heap of dread. The woman before
+her had been disciplined by sorrow to sternest self-control. 
+Though racked by emotions most intolerable, Mary soon mastered
+their expression to such an extent that when she spoke again, as
+if in self-communion, her words came quietly, yet with overtones
+of a supreme wo.
+
+"She did it!" Then, after a little, she addressed the girl with a
+certain wondering before this mystery of horror.  "Why did you
+throw the blame on me?" 
+
+The girl made several efforts before her mumbling became
+intelligible, and then her speech was gasping, broken with fear.
+
+"I found out they were watching me, and I was afraid they would
+catch me.  So, I took them and ran into the cloak-room, and put
+them in a locker that wasn't close to mine, and some in the
+pocket of a coat that was hanging there.  God knows I didn't know
+whose it was.  I just put them there--I was frightened----"
+
+"And you let me go to prison for three years!" There was a menace
+in Mary's voice under which the girl cringed again.
+
+"I was scared," she whined.  "I didn't dare to tell."
+
+"But they caught you later," Mary went on inexorably. "Why didn't
+you tell then?" 
+
+"I was afraid," came the answer from the shuddering girl.  "I
+told them it was the first time I had taken anything and they let
+me off with a year."
+
+Once more, the wrath of the victim flamed high.
+
+"You!" Mary cried.  "You cried and lied, and they let you off
+with a year.  I wouldn't cry.  I told the truth --and----" Her
+voice broke in a tearless sob.  The color had gone out of her
+face, and she stood rigid, looking down at the girl whose crime
+had ruined her life with an expression of infinite loathing in
+her eyes. Garson rose from his chair as if to go to her, and his
+face passed swiftly from compassion to ferocity as his gaze went
+from the woman he had saved from the river to the girl who had
+been the first cause of her seeking a grave in the waters.  Yet,
+though he longed with every fiber of him to comfort the stricken
+woman, he did not dare intrude upon her in this time of her
+anguish, but quietly dropped back into his seat and sat watching
+with eyes now tender, now baleful, as they shifted their
+direction.
+
+Aggie took advantage of the pause.  Her voice was acid.
+
+"Some people are sneaks--just sneaks!" 
+
+Somehow, the speech was welcome to the girl, gave her a touch of
+courage sufficient for cowardly protestations. It seemed to
+relieve the tension drawn by the other woman's torment.  It was
+more like the abuse that was familiar to her.  A gush of tears
+came.
+
+"I'll never forgive myself, never!" she moaned.
+
+Contempt mounted in Mary's breast.
+
+"Oh, yes, you will," she said, malevolently.  "People forgive
+themselves pretty easily."  The contempt checked for a little the
+ravages of her grief.  "Stop crying," she commanded harshly. 
+"Nobody is going to hurt you."  She thrust the money again toward
+the girl, and crowded it into the half-reluctant, half-greedy
+hand.
+
+"Take it, and get out."  The contempt in her voice rang still
+sharper, mordant.
+
+Even the puling creature writhed under the lash of Mary's tones. 
+She sprang up, slinking back a step.
+
+"I can't take it!" she cried, whimpering.  But she did not drop
+the money.
+
+"Take the chance while you have it," Mary counseled, still with
+the contempt that pierced even the hardened girl's sense of
+selfishness.  She pointed toward the door.  "Go!--before I change
+my mind."
+
+The girl needed, indeed, no second bidding.  With the money still
+clutched in her hand, she went forth swiftly, stumbling a little
+in her haste, fearful lest, at the last moment, the woman she had
+so wronged should in fact change in mood, take back the
+money--ay, even give her over to that terrible man with the eyes
+of hate, to put her to death as she deserved.
+
+Freed from the miasma of that presence, Mary remained motionless
+for a long minute, then sighed from her tortured heart.  She
+turned and went slowly to her chair at the desk, and seated
+herself languidly, weakened by the ordeal through which she had
+passed.
+
+"A girl I didn't know!" she said, bewilderedly; "perhaps had
+never spoken to--who smashed my life like that! Oh, if it wasn't
+so awful, it would be--funny! It would be funny!" A gust of
+hysterical laughter burst from her.  "Why, it is funny!" she
+cried, wildly.  "It is funny!" 
+
+"Mary!" Garson exclaimed sharply.  He leaped across the room to
+face her.  "That's no good!" he said severely.
+
+Aggie, too, rushed forward.
+
+"No good at all!" she declared loudly.
+
+The interference recalled the distressed woman to herself.  She
+made a desperate effort for self-command. Little by little, the
+unmeaning look died down, and presently she sat silent and
+moveless, staring at the two with stormy eyes out of a wan face.
+
+"You were right," she said at last, in a lifeless voice. "It's
+done, and can't be undone.  I was a fool to let it affect me like
+that.  I really thought I had lost all feeling about it, but the
+sight of that girl--the knowledge that she had done it--brought
+it all back to me.  Well, you understand, don't you?" 
+
+"We understand," Garson said, grimly.  But there was more than
+grimness, infinitely more, in the expression of his clear,
+glowing eyes.
+
+Aggie thought that it was her turn to voice herself, which she
+did without undue restraint.
+
+"Perhaps, we do, but I dunno! I'll tell you one thing, though. 
+If any dame sent me up for three years and then wanted money from
+me, do you think she'd get it?  Wake me up any time in the night
+and ask me.  Not much--not a little bit much! I'd hang on to it
+like an old woman to her last tooth."  And that was Aggie's final
+summing up of her impressions concerning the scene she had just
+witnessed.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. A BRIDEGROOM SPURNED. 
+
+After Aggie's vigorous comment there followed a long silence. 
+That volatile young person, little troubled as she was by
+sensitiveness, guessed the fact that just now further discussion
+of the event would be distasteful to Mary, and so she betook
+herself discreetly to a cigarette and the illustrations of a
+popular magazine devoted to the stage.  As for the man, his
+reticence was really from a fear lest in speaking at all he might
+speak too freely, might betray the pervasive violence of his
+feeling.  So, he sat motionless and wordless, his eyes carefully
+avoiding Mary in order that she might not be disturbed by the
+invisible vibrations thus sent from one to another.  Mary herself
+was shaken to the depths.  A great weariness, a weariness that
+cried the worthlessness of all things, had fallen upon her.  It
+rested leaden on her soul.  It weighed down her body as well,
+though that mattered little indeed.  Yet, since she could
+minister to that readily, she rose and went to a settee on the
+opposite side of the room where she arranged herself among the
+cushions in a posture more luxurious than her rather precise
+early training usually permitted her to assume in the presence of
+others.  There she rested, and soon felt the tides of energy
+again flowing in her blood, and that same vitality, too, wrought
+healing even for her agonized soul, though more slowly.  The
+perfect health of her gave her strength to recover speedily from
+the shock she had sustained.  It was this health that made the
+glory of the flawless skin, white with a living white that
+revealed the coursing blood beneath, and the crimson lips that
+bent in smiles so tender, or so wistful, and the limpid eyes in
+which always lurked fires that sometimes burst into flame, the
+lustrous mass of undulating hair that sparkled in the sunlight
+like an aureole to her face or framed it in heavy splendors with
+its shadows, and the supple erectness of her graceful carriage,
+the lithe dignity of her every movement.
+
+But, at last, she stirred uneasily and sat up.  Garson accepted
+this as a sufficient warrant for speech.
+
+"You know--Aggie told you--that Cassidy was up here from
+Headquarters.  He didn't put a name to it, but I'm on."  Mary
+regarded him inquiringly, and he continued, putting the fact with
+a certain brutal bluntness after the habit of his class.  "I
+guess you'll have to quit seeing young Gilder.  The bulls are
+wise.  His father has made a holler.
+
+"Don't let that worry you, Joe," she said tranquilly. She allowed
+a few seconds go by, then added as if quite indifferent: "I was
+married to Dick Gilder this morning."  There came a squeal of
+amazement from Aggie, a start of incredulity from Garson.
+
+"Yes," Mary repeated evenly, "I was married to him this morning. 
+That was my important engagement," she added with a smile toward
+Aggie.  For some intuitive reason, mysterious to herself, she did
+not care to meet the man's eyes at that moment.
+
+Aggie sat erect, her baby face alive with worldly glee.
+
+"My Gawd, what luck!" she exclaimed noisily. "Why, he's a king
+fish, he is.  Gee! But I'm glad you landed him!" 
+
+"Thank you," Mary said with a smile that was the result of her
+sense of humor rather than from any tenderness.
+
+It was then that Garson spoke.  He was a delicate man in his
+sensibilities at times, in spite of the fact that he followed
+devious methods in his manner of gaining a livelihood.  So, now,
+he put a question of vital significance.
+
+"Do you love him?" 
+
+The question caught Mary all unprepared, but she retained her
+self-control sufficiently to make her answer in a voice that to
+the ordinary ear would have revealed no least tremor.
+
+"No," she said.  She offered no explanation, no excuse, merely
+stated the fact in all its finality.
+
+Aggie was really shocked, though for a reason altogether sordid,
+not one whit romantic.
+
+"Ain't he young?"  she demanded aggressively. "Ain't he
+good-looking, and loose with his money something scandalous?  If
+I met up with a fellow as liberal as him, if he was three times
+his age, I could simply adore him!" 
+
+It was Garson who pressed the topic with an inexorable curiosity
+born of his unselfish interest in the woman concerned.
+
+"Then, why did you marry him?"  he asked.  The sincerity of him
+was excuse enough for the seeming indelicacy of the question. 
+Besides, he felt himself somehow responsible.  He had given back
+to her the gift of life, which she had rejected.  Surely, he had
+the right to know the truth.
+
+It seemed that Mary believed her confidence his due, for she told
+him the fact.
+
+"I have been working and scheming for nearly a year to do it,"
+she said, with a hardening of her face that spoke of indomitable
+resolve.  "Now, it's done."  A vindictive gleam shot from her
+violet eyes as she added: "It's only the beginning, too."
+
+Garson, with the keen perspicacity that had made him a successful
+criminal without a single conviction to mar his record, had
+seized the implication in her statement, and now put it in words.
+
+"Then, you won't leave us?  We're going on as we were before?" 
+The hint of dejection in his manner had vanished.  "And you won't
+live with him?" 
+
+"Live with him?"  Mary exclaimed emphatically. "Certainly not!" 
+
+Aggie's neatly rounded jaw dropped in a gape of surprise that was
+most unladylike.
+
+"You are going to live on in this joint with us?"  she
+questioned, aghast.
+
+"Of course."  The reply was given with the utmost of certainty.
+
+Aggie presented the crux of the matter.
+
+"Where will hubby live?" 
+
+There was no lessening of the bride's composure as she replied,
+with a little shrug.
+
+"Anywhere but here."
+
+Aggie suddenly giggled.  To her sense of humor there was
+something vastly diverting in this new scheme of giving bliss to
+a fond husband.
+
+"Anywhere but here," she repeated gaily.  "Oh, won't that be
+nice--for him?  Oh, yes! Oh, quite so! Oh, yes, indeed--quite
+so--so!" 
+
+Garson, however, was still patient in his determination to
+apprehend just what had come to pass.
+
+"Does he understand the arrangement?"  was his question.
+
+"No, not yet," Mary admitted, without sign of embarrassment.
+
+"Well," Aggie said, with another giggle, "when you do get around
+to tell him, break it to him gently."
+
+Garson was intently considering another phase of the situation,
+one suggested perhaps out of his own deeper sentiments.
+
+"He must think a lot of you!" he said, gravely. "Don't he?" 
+
+For the first time, Mary was moved to the display of a slight
+confusion.  She hesitated a little before her answer, and when
+she spoke it was in a lower key, a little more slowly.
+
+"I--I suppose so."
+
+Aggie presented the truth more subtly than could have been
+expected from her.
+
+"Think a lot of you?  Of course he does! Thinks enough to marry
+you! And believe me, kid, when a man thinks enough of you to
+marry you, well, that's some thinking!" 
+
+Somehow, the crude expression of this professional adventuress
+penetrated to Mary's conscience, though it held in it the truth
+to which her conscience bore witness, to which she had tried to
+shut her ears.... And now from the man came something like a
+draught of elixir to her conscience--like the trump of doom to
+her scheme of vengeance.
+
+Garson spoke very softly, but with an intensity that left no
+doubt as to the honesty of his purpose.
+
+"I'd say, throw up the whole game and go to him, if you really
+care."
+
+There fell a tense silence.  It was broken by Mary herself.  She
+spoke with a touch of haste, as if battling against some
+hindrance within.
+
+"I married him to get even with his father," she said. "That's
+all there is to it.... By the way, I expect Dick will be here in
+a minute or two.  When he comes, just remember not to--enlighten
+him."
+
+Aggie sniffed indignantly.
+
+"Don't worry about me, not a mite.  Whenever it's really wanted,
+I'm always there with a full line of that lady stuff." 
+Thereupon, she sprang up, and proceeded to give her conception of
+the proper welcoming of the happy bridegroom.  The performance
+was amusing enough in itself, but for some reason it moved
+neither of the two for whom it was rendered to more than
+perfunctory approval.  The fact had no depressing effect on the
+performer, however, and it was only the coming of the maid that
+put her lively sallies to an end.
+
+"Mr. Gilder," Fannie announced.
+
+Mary put a question with so much of energy that Garson began
+finally to understand the depth of her vindictive feeling.
+
+"Any one with him?" 
+
+"No, Miss Turner," the maid answered.
+
+"Have him come in," Mary ordered.
+
+Garson felt that he would be better away for the sake of the
+newly married pair at least, if not for his own.  He made hasty
+excuses and went out on the heels of the maid.  Aggie, however,
+consulting only her own wishes in the matter, had no thought of
+flight, and, if the truth be told, Mary was glad of the
+sustaining presence of another woman.
+
+She got up slowly, and stood silent, while Aggie regarded her
+curiously.  Even to the insensitive observer, there was something
+strange in the atmosphere.... A moment later the bridegroom
+entered.
+
+He was still clean-cut and wholesome.  Some sons of wealthy
+fathers are not, after four years experience of the white lights
+of town.  And the lines of his face were firmer, better in every
+way.  It seemed, indeed, that here was some one of a resolute
+character, not to be wasted on the trivial and gross things.  In
+an instant, he had gone to her, had caught her in his arms with,
+"Hello, dear!" smothered in the kiss he implanted on her lips.
+
+Mary strove vainly to free herself.
+
+"Don't, oh, don't!" she gasped.
+
+Dick Gilder released his wife from his arms and smiled the
+beatific smile of the newly-wed.
+
+"Why not?"  he demanded, with a smile, a smile calm, triumphant,
+masterful.
+
+"Agnes!" ... It was the sole pretext to which Mary could turn for
+a momentary relief.
+
+The bridegroom faced about, and perceived Agnes, who stood
+closely watching the meeting between husband and wife.  He made
+an excellent formal bow of the sort that one learns only abroad,
+and spoke quietly.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Miss Lynch, but"--a smile of perfect
+happiness shone on his face--"you could hardly expect me to see
+any one but Mary under the circumstances. Could you?" 
+
+Aggie strove to rise to this emergency, and again took on her
+best manner, speaking rather coldly.
+
+"Under what circumstances?"  she inquired.
+
+The young man exclaimed joyously.
+
+"Why, we were married this morning."
+
+Aggie accepted the news with fitting excitement.
+
+"Goodness gracious! How perfectly lovely!" 
+
+The bridegroom regarded her with a face that was luminous of
+delight.
+
+"You bet, it's lovely!" he declared with entire conviction. He
+turned to Mary, his face glowing with satisfaction.
+
+"Mary," he said, "I have the honeymoon trip all fixed.  The
+Mauretania sails at five in the morning, so we will----"
+
+A cold voice struck suddenly through this rhapsodizing. It was
+that of the bride.
+
+"Where is your father?"  she asked, without any trace of emotion.
+
+The bridegroom stopped short, and a deep blush spread itself over
+his boyish face.  His tone was filled full to overflowing with
+compunction as he answered.
+
+"Oh, Lord! I had forgotten all about Dad."  He beamed on Mary
+with a smile half-ashamed, half-happy.  "I'm awfully sorry," he
+said earnestly.  "I'll tell you what we'll do.  We'll send Dad a
+wireless from the ship, then write him from Paris."
+
+But the confident tone brought no response of agreement from
+Mary.  On the contrary, her voice was, if anything, even colder
+as she replied to his suggestion. She spoke with an emphasis that
+brooked no evasion.
+
+"What was your promise?  I told you that I wouldn't go with you
+until you had brought your father to me, and he had wished us
+happiness."  Dick placed his hands gently on his wife's shoulders
+and regarded her with a touch of indignation in his gaze.
+
+"Mary," he said reproachfully, "you are not going to hold me to
+that promise?" 
+
+The answer was given with a decisiveness that admitted of no
+question, and there was a hardness in her face that emphasized
+the words.
+
+"I am going to hold you to that promise, Dick."
+
+For a few seconds, the young man stared at her with troubled
+eyes.  Then he moved impatiently, and dropped his hands from her
+shoulders.  But his usual cheery smile came again, and he
+shrugged resignedly.
+
+"All right, Mrs. Gilder," he said, gaily.  The sound of the name
+provoked him to new pleasure.  "Sounds fine, doesn't it?"  he
+demanded, with an uxorious air.
+
+"Yes," Mary said, but there was no enthusiasm in her tone.
+
+The husband went on speaking with no apparent heed of his wife's
+indifference.
+
+"You pack up what things you need, girlie," he directed. "Just a
+few--because they sell clothes in Paris. And they are some class,
+believe me! And meantime, I'll run down to Dad's office, and have
+him back here in half an hour.  You will be all ready, won't
+you?" 
+
+Mary answered quickly, with a little catching of her breath, but
+still coldly.
+
+"Yes, yes, I'll be ready.  Go and bring your father."
+
+"You bet I will," Dick cried heartily.  He would have taken her
+in his arms again, but she evaded the caress. "What's the
+matter?"  he demanded, plainly at a loss to understand this
+repulse.
+
+"Nothing!" was the ambiguous answer.
+
+"Just one!" Dick pleaded.
+
+"No," the bride replied, and there was determination in the
+monosyllable.
+
+It was evident that Dick perceived the futility of argument.
+
+"For a married woman you certainly are shy," he replied, with a
+sly glance toward Aggie, who beamed back sympathy.  "You'll
+excuse me, won't you, Miss Lynch,... Good-by, Mrs. Gilder."  He
+made a formal bow to his wife.  As he hurried to the door, he
+expressed again his admiration for the name.  "Mrs. Gilder!
+Doesn't that sound immense?"  And with that he was gone.
+
+There was silence in the drawing-room until the two women heard
+the closing of the outer door of the apartment. Then, at last,
+Aggie relieved her pent-up emotions in a huge sigh that was near
+a groan.
+
+"Oh Gawd!" she gasped.  "The poor simp!" 
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. THE ADVENT OF GRIGGS. 
+
+Later on, Garson, learning from the maid that Dick Gilder had
+left, returned, just as Mary was glancing over the release, with
+which General Hastings was to be compensated, along with the
+return of his letters, for his payment of ten thousand dollars to
+Miss Agnes Lynch.
+
+"Hello, Joe," Mary said graciously as the forger entered.  Then
+she spoke crisply to Agnes.  "And now you must get ready.  You
+are to be at Harris's office with this document at four o'clock,
+and remember that you are to let the lawyer manage everything."
+
+Aggie twisted her doll-like face into a grimace.
+
+"It gets my angora that I'll have to miss Pa Gilder's being led
+like a lamb to the slaughter-house."  And that was the nearest
+the little adventuress ever came to making a Biblical quotation.
+
+"Anyhow," she protested, "I don't see the use of all this monkey
+business here.  All I want is the coin."  But she hurried
+obediently, nevertheless, to get ready for the start.
+
+Garson regarded Mary quizzically.
+
+"It's lucky for her that she met you," he said.  "She's got no
+more brains than a gnat."
+
+"And brains are mighty useful things, even in our business," Mary
+replied seriously; "particularly in our business."
+
+"I should say they were," Garson agreed.  "You have proved that."
+
+Aggie came back, putting on her gloves, and cocking her small
+head very primly under the enormous hat that was garnished with
+costliest plumes.  It was thus that she consoled herself in a
+measure for the business of the occasion--in lieu of cracked ice
+from Tiffany's at one hundred and fifty a carat.  Mary gave over
+the release, and Aggie, still grumbling, deposited it in her
+handbag.
+
+"It seems to me we're going through a lot of red tape," she said
+spitefully.
+
+Mary, from her chair at the desk, regarded the malcontent with a
+smile, but her tone was crisp as she answered.
+
+"Listen, Agnes.  The last time you tried to make a man give up
+part of his money it resulted in your going to prison for two
+years."
+
+Aggie sniffed, as if such an outcome were the merest bagatelle.
+
+"But that way was so exciting," she urged, not at all convinced.
+
+"And this way is so safe," Mary rejoined, sharply. "Besides, my
+dear, you would not get the money.  My way will.  Your way was
+blackmail; mine is not.  Understand?" 
+
+"Oh, sure," Aggie replied, grimly, on her way to the door.  "It's
+clear as Pittsburgh."  With that sarcasm directed against legal
+subtleties, she tripped daintily out, an entirely ravishing
+vision, if somewhat garish as to raiment, and soon in the glances
+of admiration that every man cast on her guileless-seeming
+beauty, she forgot that she had ever been annoyed.
+
+Garson's comment as she departed was uttered with his accustomed
+bluntness.
+
+"Solid ivory!" 
+
+"She's a darling, anyway!" Mary declared, smiling. "You really
+don't half-appreciate her, Joe!" 
+
+"Anyhow, I appreciate that hat," was the reply, with a dry
+chuckle.
+
+"Mr. Griggs," Fannie announced.  There was a smile on the face of
+the maid, which was explained a minute later when, in accordance
+with her mistress's order, the visitor was shown into the
+drawing-room, for his presence was of an elegance so
+extraordinary as to attract attention anywhere--and mirth as well
+from ribald observers.
+
+Meantime, Garson had explained to Mary.
+
+"It's English Eddie--you met him once.  I wonder what he wants? 
+Probably got a trick for me.  We often used to work together."
+
+"Nothing without my consent," Mary warned.
+
+"Oh, no, no, sure not!" Garson agreed.
+
+Further discussion was cut short by the appearance of English
+Eddie himself, a tall, handsome man in the early thirties, who
+paused just within the doorway, and delivered to Mary a bow that
+was the perfection of elegance. Mary made no effort to restrain
+the smile caused by the costume of Mr. Griggs.  Yet, there was no
+violation of the canons of good taste, except in the aggregate.
+From spats to hat, from walking coat to gloves, everything was
+perfect of its kind.  Only, there was an over-elaboration, so
+that the ensemble was flamboyant. And the man's manners precisely
+harmonized with his clothes, whereby the whole effect was
+emphasized and rendered bizarre.  Garson took one amazed look,
+and then rocked with laughter.
+
+Griggs regarded his former associate reproachfully for a moment,
+and then grinned in frank sympathy.
+
+"Really, Mr. Griggs, you quite overcome me," Mary said,
+half-apologetically.
+
+The visitor cast a self-satisfied glance over his garb.
+
+"I think it's rather neat, myself."  He had some reputation in
+the under-world for his manner of dressing, and he regarded this
+latest achievement as his masterpiece.
+
+"Sure some duds!" Garson admitted, checking his merriment.
+
+"From your costume," Mary suggested, "one might judge that this
+is purely a social call.  Is it?" 
+
+"Well, not exactly," Griggs answered with a smile.
+
+"So I fancied," his hostess replied.  "So, sit down, please, and
+tell us all about it."
+
+While she was speaking, Garson went to the various doors, and
+made sure that all were shut, then he took a seat in a chair near
+that which Griggs occupied by the desk, so that the three were
+close together, and could speak softly.
+
+English Eddie wasted no time in getting to the point.
+
+"Now, look here," he said, rapidly.  "I've got the greatest game
+in the world.... Two years ago, a set of Gothic tapestries, worth
+three hundred thousand dollars and a set of Fragonard panels,
+worth nearly as much more, were plucked from a chateau in France
+and smuggled into this country."
+
+"I have never heard of that," Mary said, with some interest.
+
+"No," Griggs replied.  "You naturally wouldn't, for the simple
+reason that it's been kept on the dead quiet."
+
+"Are them things really worth that much?"  Garson exclaimed.
+
+"Sometimes more," Mary answered.  "Morgan has a set of Gothic
+tapestries worth half a million dollars."
+
+Garson uttered an ejaculation of disgust.
+
+"He pays half a million dollars for a set of rugs!" There was a
+note of fiercest bitterness come into his voice as he
+sarcastically concluded: "And they wonder at crime!" 
+
+Griggs went on with his account.
+
+"About a month ago, the things I was telling you of were hung in
+the library of a millionaire in this city."  He hitched his chair
+a little closer to the desk, and leaned forward, lowering his
+voice almost to a whisper as he stated his plan.
+
+"Let's go after them.  They were smuggled, mind you, and no
+matter what happens, he can't squeal.  What do you say?" 
+
+Garson shot a piercing glance at Mary.
+
+"It's up to her," he said.  Griggs regarded Mary eagerly, as she
+sat with eyes downcast.  Then, after a little interval had
+elapsed in silence, he spoke interrogatively:
+
+"Well?" 
+
+Mary shook her head decisively.  "It's out of our line," she
+declared.
+
+Griggs would have argued the matter.  "I don't see any easier way
+to get half a million," he said aggressively.
+
+Mary, however, was unimpressed.
+
+"If it were fifty millions, it would make no difference. It's
+against the law."
+
+"Oh, I know all that, of course," Griggs returned impatiently. 
+"But if you can----"
+
+Mary interrupted him in a tone of finality.
+
+"My friends and I never do anything that's illegal! Thank you for
+coming to us, Mr. Griggs, but we can't go in, and there's an end
+of the matter."
+
+"But wait a minute," English Eddie expostulated, "you see this
+chap, Gilder, is----"
+
+Mary's manner changed from indifference to sudden keen interest.
+
+"Gilder?"  she exclaimed, questioningly.
+
+"Yes.  You know who he is," Griggs answered; "the drygoods man."
+
+Garson in his turn showed a new excitement as he bent toward
+Mary.
+
+"Why, it's old Gilder, the man you----"
+
+Mary, however, had regained her self-control, for a moment rudely
+shaken, and now her voice was tranquil again as she replied:
+
+"I know.  But, just the same, it's illegal, and I won't touch it. 
+That's all there is to it."
+
+Griggs was dismayed.
+
+"But half a million!" he exclaimed, disconsolately. "There's a
+stake worth playing for.  Think of it!" He turned pleadingly to
+Garson.  "Half a million, Joe!" 
+
+The forger repeated the words with an inflection that was
+gloating.
+
+"Half a million!" 
+
+"And it's the softest thing you ever saw."
+
+The telephone at the desk rang, and Mary spoke into it for a
+moment, then rose and excused herself to resume the conversation
+over the wire more privately in the booth.  The instant she was
+out of the room, Griggs turned to Garson anxiously.
+
+"It's a cinch, Joe," he pleaded.  "I've got a plan of the house." 
+He drew a paper from his breast-pocket, and handed it to the
+forger, who seized it avidly and studied it with intent,
+avaricious eyes.
+
+"It looks easy," Garson agreed, as he gave back the paper.
+
+"It is easy," Griggs reiterated.  "What do you say?" 
+
+Garson shook his head in refusal, but there was no conviction in
+the act.
+
+"I promised Mary never to----"
+
+Griggs broke in on him.
+
+"But a chance like this! Anyhow, come around to the back room at
+Blinkey's to-night, and we'll have a talk.  Will you?" 
+
+"What time?"  Garson asked hesitatingly, tempted.
+
+"Make it early, say nine," was the answer.  "Will you?" 
+
+"I'll come," Garson replied, half-guiltily.  And in the same
+moment Mary reentered.
+
+Griggs rose and spoke with an air of regret.
+
+"It's 'follow the leader,' " he said, "and since you are against
+it, that settles it."
+
+"Yes, I'm against it," Mary said, firmly.
+
+"I'm sorry," English Eddie rejoined.  "But we must all play the
+game as we see it.... Well, that was the business I was after,
+and, as it's finished, why, good-afternoon, Miss Turner."  He
+nodded toward Joe, and took his departure.
+
+Something of what was in his mind was revealed in Garson's first
+speech after Griggs's going.
+
+"That's a mighty big stake he's playing for."
+
+"And a big chance he's taking!" Mary retorted.  "No, Joe, we
+don't want any of that.  We'll play a game that's safe and sure."
+
+The words recalled to the forger weird forebodings that had been
+troubling him throughout the day.
+
+"It's sure enough," he stated, "but is it safe?" 
+
+Mary looked up quickly.
+
+"What do you mean?"  she demanded.
+
+Garson walked to and fro nervously as he answered.
+
+"S'pose the bulls get tired of you putting it over on 'em and try
+some rough work?" 
+
+Mary smiled carelessly.
+
+"Don't worry, Joe," she advised.  "I know a way to stop it."
+
+"Well, so far as that goes, so do I," the forger said, with
+significant emphasis.
+
+"Just what do you mean by that?"  Mary demanded, suspiciously.
+
+"For rough work," he said, "I have this."  He took a magazine
+pistol from his pocket.  It was of an odd shape, with a barrel
+longer than is usual and a bell-shaped contrivance attached to
+the muzzle.
+
+"No, no, Joe," Mary cried, greatly discomposed. "None of
+that--ever!" 
+
+The forger smiled, and there was malignant triumph in his
+expression.
+
+"Pooh!" he exclaimed.  "Even if I used it, they would never get
+on to me.  See this?"  He pointed at the strange contrivance on
+the muzzle.
+
+Mary's curiosity made her forget for a moment her distaste.
+
+"What is it?"  she asked, interestedly.  "I have never seen
+anything like that before."
+
+"Of course you haven't," Garson answered with much pride.  "I'm
+the first man in the business to get one, and I'll bet on it.  I
+keep up with the times."  For once, he was revealing that
+fundamental egotism which is the characteristic of all his kind. 
+"That's one of the new Maxim silencers," he continued.  "With
+smokeless powder in the cartridges, and the silencer on, I can
+make a shot from my coat-pocket, and you wouldn't even know it
+had been done.  .  ..  And I'm some shot, believe me."
+
+"Impossible!" Mary ejaculated.
+
+"No, it ain't," the man asserted.  "Here, wait, I'll show you."
+
+"Good gracious, not here!" Mary exclaimed in alarm. "We would
+have the whole place down on us."
+
+Garson chuckled.
+
+"You just watch that dinky little vase on the table across the
+room there.  'Tain't very valuable, is it?" 
+
+"No," Mary answered.
+
+In the same instant, while still her eyes were on the vase, it
+fell in a cascade of shivered glass to the table and floor.  She
+had heard no sound, she saw no smoke. Perhaps, there had been a
+faintest clicking noise.  She was not sure.  She stared
+dumfounded for a few seconds, then turned her bewildered face
+toward Garson, who was grinning in high enjoyment.
+
+"I would'nt have believed it possible," she declared, vastly
+impressed.
+
+"Neat little thing, ain't it?"  the man asked, exultantly.
+
+"Where did you get it?"  Mary asked.
+
+"In Boston, last week.  And between you and me, Mary, it's the
+only model, and it sure is a corker for crime."
+
+The sinister association of ideas made Mary shudder, but she said
+no more.  She would have shuddered again, if she could have
+guessed the vital part that pistol was destined to play.  But she
+had no thought of any actual peril to come from it.  She might
+have thought otherwise, could she have known of the meeting that
+night in the back room of Blinkey's, where English Eddie and
+Garson sat with their heads close together over a table.
+
+"A chance like this," Griggs was saying, "a chance that will make
+a fortune for all of us."
+
+"It sounds good," Garson admitted, wistfully.
+
+"It is good," the other declared with an oath.  "Why, if this
+goes through, we're set up for life.  We can quit, all of us."
+
+"Yes," Garson agreed, "we can quit, all of us."  There was
+avarice in his voice.
+
+The tempter was sure that the battle was won, and smiled
+contentedly.
+
+"Well," he urged, "what do you say?" 
+
+"How would we split it?"  It was plain that Garson had given over
+the struggle against greed.  After all, Mary was only a woman,
+despite her cleverness, and with all a woman's timidity.  Here
+was sport for men.
+
+"Three ways would be right," Griggs answered.  "One to me, one to
+you and one to be divided up among the others."
+
+Garson brought his fist down on the table with a force that made
+the glasses jingle.
+
+"You're on," he said, strongly.
+
+"Fine!" Griggs declared, and the two men shook hands.  "Now, I'll
+get----"
+
+"Get nothing!" Garson interrupted.  "I'll get my own men. 
+Chicago Red is in town.  So is Dacey, with perhaps a couple of
+others of the right sort.  I'll get them to meet you at Blinkey's
+at two to-morrow afternoon, and, if it looks right, we'll turn
+the trick to-morrow night."
+
+"That's the stuff," Griggs agreed, greatly pleased.
+
+But a sudden shadow fell on the face of Garson.  He bent closer
+to his companion, and spoke with a fierce intensity that brooked
+no denial.
+
+"She must never know."
+
+Griggs nodded understandingly.
+
+"Of course," he answered.  "I give you my word that I'll never
+tell her.  And you know you can trust me, Joe."
+
+"Yes," the forger replied somberly, "I know I can trust you." 
+But the shadow did not lift from his face.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. A WEDDING ANNOUNCEMENT. 
+
+Mary dismissed Garson presently, and betook herself to her
+bedroom for a nap.  The day had been a trying one, and, though
+her superb health could endure much, she felt that both prudence
+and comfort required that she should recruit her energies while
+there was opportunity.  She was not in the least surprised that
+Dick had not yet returned, though he had mentioned half an hour. 
+At the best, there were many things that might detain him, his
+father's absence from the office, difficulties in making
+arrangements for his projected honeymoon trip abroad--which would
+never occur--or the like.  At the worst, there was a chance of
+finding his father promptly, and of that father as promptly
+taking steps to prevent the son from ever again seeing the woman
+who had so indiscreetly married him.  Yet, somehow, Mary could
+not believe that her husband would yield to such paternal
+coercion.  Rather, she was sure that he would prove loyal to her
+whom he loved, through every trouble.  At the thought a certain
+wistfulness pervaded her, and a poignant regret that this
+particular man should have been the one chosen of fate to be
+entangled within her mesh of revenge.  There throbbed in her a
+heart-tormenting realization that there were in life
+possibilities infinitely more splendid than the joy of vengeance. 
+She would not confess the truth even to her inmost soul, but the
+truth was there, and set her a-tremble with vague fears. 
+Nevertheless, because she was in perfect health, and was much
+fatigued, her introspection did not avail to keep her awake, and
+within three minutes from the time she lay down she was
+blissfully unconscious of all things, both the evil and the good,
+revenge and love.
+
+She had slept, perhaps, a half-hour, when Fannie awakened her.
+
+"It's a man named Burke," she explained, as her mistress lay
+blinking.  "And there's another man with him.  They said they
+must see you."
+
+By this time, Mary was wide-awake, for the name of Burke, the
+Police Inspector, was enough to startle her out of drowsiness.
+
+"Bring them in, in five minutes," she directed.
+
+She got up, slipped into a tea-gown, bathed her eyes in cologne,
+dressed her hair a little, and went into the drawing-room, where
+the two men had been waiting for something more than a quarter of
+an hour--to the violent indignation of both.
+
+"Oh, here you are, at last!" the big, burly man cried as she
+entered.  The whole air of him, though he was in civilian's
+clothes, proclaimed the policeman.
+
+"Yes, Inspector," Mary replied pleasantly, as she advanced into
+the room.  She gave a glance toward the other visitor, who was of
+a slenderer form, with a thin, keen face, and recognized him
+instantly as Demarest, who had taken part against her as the
+lawyer for the store at the time of her trial, and who was now
+holding the office of District Attorney.  She went to the chair
+at the desk, and seated herself in a leisurely fashion that
+increased the indignation of the fuming Inspector.  She did not
+trouble to ask her self-invited guests to sit.
+
+"To whom do I owe the pleasure of this visit, Inspector?"  she
+remarked coolly.  It was noticeable that she said whom and not
+what, as if she understood perfectly that the influence of some
+person brought him on this errand.
+
+"I have come to have a few quiet words with you," the Inspector
+declared, in a mighty voice that set the globes of the
+chandeliers a-quiver.  Mary disregarded him, and turned to the
+other man.
+
+"How do you do, Mr. Demarest?"  she said, evenly. "It's four
+years since we met, and they've made you District Attorney since
+then.  Allow me to congratulate you."
+
+Demarest's keen face took on an expression of perplexity.
+
+"I'm puzzled," he confessed.  "There is something familiar,
+somehow, about you, and yet----" He scrutinized appreciatively
+the loveliness of the girl with her classically beautiful face,
+that was still individual in its charm, the slim graces of the
+tall, lissome form.  "I should have remembered you.  I don't
+understand it."
+
+"Can't you guess?"  Mary questioned, somberly. "Search your
+memory, Mr. Demarest."
+
+Of a sudden, the face of the District Attorney lightened.
+
+"Why," he exclaimed, "you are--it can't be--yes--you are the
+girl, you're the Mary Turner whom I--oh, I know you now."
+
+There was an enigmatic smile bending the scarlet lips as she
+answered.
+
+"I'm the girl you mean, Mr. Demarest, but, for the rest, you
+don't know me--not at all!" 
+
+The burly figure of the Inspector of Police, which had loomed
+motionless during this colloquy, now advanced a step, and the big
+voice boomed threatening. It was very rough and weighted with
+authority.
+
+"Young woman," Burke said, peremptorily, "the Twentieth Century
+Limited leaves Grand Central Station at four o'clock.  It arrives
+in Chicago at eight-fifty-five to-morrow morning."  He pulled a
+massive gold watch from his waistcoat pocket, glanced at it,
+thrust it back, and concluded ponderously: "You will just about
+have time to catch that train."
+
+Mary regarded the stockily built officer with a half-amused
+contempt, which she was at no pains to conceal.
+
+"Working for the New York Central now?"  she asked blandly.
+
+The gibe made the Inspector furious.
+
+"I'm working for the good of New York City," he answered
+venomously.
+
+Mary let a ripple of cadenced laughter escape her.
+
+"Since when?"  she questioned.
+
+A little smile twisted the lips of the District Attorney, but he
+caught himself quickly, and spoke with stern gravity.
+
+"Miss Turner, I think you will find that a different tone will
+serve you better."
+
+"Oh, let her talk," Burke interjected angrily.  "She's only got a
+few minutes anyway."
+
+Mary remained unperturbed.
+
+"Very well, then," she said genially, "let us be comfortable
+during that little period."  She made a gesture of invitation
+toward chairs, which Burke disdained to accept; but Demarest
+seated himself.
+
+"You'd better be packing your trunk," the Inspector rumbled.
+
+"But why?"  Mary inquired, with a tantalizing assumption of
+innocence.  "I'm not going away."
+
+"On the Twentieth Century Limited, this afternoon," the Inspector
+declared, in a voice of growing wrath.
+
+"Oh, dear, no!" Mary's assertion was made very quietly, but with
+an underlying firmness that irritated the official beyond
+endurance.
+
+"I say yes!" The answer was a bellow.
+
+Mary appeared distressed, not frightened.  Her words were an
+ironic protest against the man's obstreperous noisiness, no more.
+
+"I thought you wanted quiet words with me."
+
+Burke went toward her, in a rage.
+
+"Now, look here, Mollie----" he began harshly.
+
+On the instant, Mary was on her feet, facing him, and there was a
+gleam in her eyes as they met his that bade him pause.
+
+"Miss Turner, if you don't mind."  She laughed slightly.  "For
+the present, anyway."  She reseated herself tranquilly.
+
+Burke was checked, but he retained his severity of bearing.
+
+"I'm giving you your orders.  You will either go to Chicago, or
+you'll go up the river."
+
+Mary answered in a voice charged with cynicism.
+
+"If you can convict me.  Pray, notice that little word 'if'."
+
+The District Attorney interposed very suavely.
+
+"I did once, remember."
+
+"But you can't do it again," Mary declared, with an assurance
+that excited the astonishment of the police official.
+
+"How do you know he can't?"  he blustered.
+
+Mary laughed in a cadence of genial merriment.
+
+"Because," she replied gaily, "if he could, he would have had me
+in prison some time ago."
+
+Burke winced, but he made shift to conceal his realization of the
+truth she had stated to him.
+
+"Huh!" he exclaimed gruffly.  "I've seen them go up pretty easy."
+
+Mary met the assertion with a serenity that was baffling.
+
+"The poor ones," she vouchsafed; "not those that have money.  I
+have money, plenty of money--now."
+
+"Money you stole!" the Inspector returned, brutally.
+
+"Oh, dear, no!" Mary cried, with a fine show of virtuous
+indignation.
+
+"What about the thirty thousand dollars you got on that
+partnership swindle?"  Burke asked, sneering.  "I s'pose you
+didn't steal that!" 
+
+"Certainly not," was the ready reply.  "The man advertised for a
+partner in a business sure to bring big and safe returns.  I
+answered.  The business proposed was to buy a tract of land, and
+subdivide it.  The deeds to the land were all forged, and the
+supposed seller was his confederate, with whom he was to divide
+the money. We formed a partnership, with a capital of sixty
+thousand dollars.  We paid the money into the bank, and then at
+once I drew it out.  You see, he wanted to get my money
+illegally, but instead I managed to get his legally.  For it was
+legal for me to draw that money--wasn't it, Mr. Demarest?" 
+
+The District Attorney by an effort retained his severe expression
+of righteous disapprobation, but he admitted the truth of her
+contention.
+
+"Unfortunately, yes," he said gravely.  "A partner has the right
+to draw out any, or all, of the partnership funds."
+
+"And I was a partner," Mary said contentedly.  "You, see,
+Inspector, you wrong me--you do, really! I'm not a swindler; I'm
+a financier."
+
+Burke sneered scornfully.
+
+"Well," he roared, "you'll never pull another one on me.  You can
+gamble on that!" 
+
+Mary permitted herself to laugh mockingly in the face of the
+badgered official.
+
+"Thank you for telling me," she said, graciously. "And let me
+say, incidentally, that Miss Lynch at the present moment is
+painlessly extracting ten thousand dollars from General Hastings
+in a perfectly legal manner, Inspector Burke."
+
+"Well, anyhow," Burke shouted, "you may stay inside the law, but
+you've got to get outside the city."  He tried to employ an
+elephantine bantering tone.  "On the level, now, do you think you
+could get away with that young Gilder scheme you've been
+planning?" 
+
+Mary appeared puzzled.
+
+"What young Gilder scheme?"  she asked, her brows drawn in
+bewilderment.
+
+"Oh, I'm wise--I'm wise!" the Inspector cried roughly. "The
+answer is, once for all, leave town this afternoon, or you'll be
+in the Tombs in the morning."
+
+Abruptly, a change came over the woman.  Hitherto, she had been
+cynical, sarcastic, laughing, careless, impudent.  Now, of a
+sudden, she was all seriousness, and she spoke with a gravity
+that, despite their volition, impressed both the men before her.
+
+"It can't be done, Inspector," she said, sedately.
+
+The declaration, simple as it was, aroused the official to new
+indignation.
+
+"Who says it can't?"  he vociferated, overflowing with anger at
+this flouting of the authority he represented.
+
+Mary opened a drawer of the desk, and took out the document
+obtained that morning from Harris, and held it forth.
+
+"This," she replied, succinctly.
+
+"What's this?"  Burke stormed.  But he took the paper.
+
+Demarest looked over the Inspector's shoulder, and his eyes grew
+larger as he read.  When he was at an end of the reading, he
+regarded the passive woman at the desk with a new respect.
+
+"What's this?"  Burke repeated helplessly.  It was not easy for
+him to interpret the legal phraseology. Mary was kind enough to
+make the document clear to him.
+
+"It's a temporary restraining order from the Supreme Court,
+instructing you to let me alone until you have legal proof that I
+have broken the law.... Do you get that, Mr. Inspector Burke?" 
+
+The plethoric official stared hard at the injunction.
+
+"Another new one," he stuttered finally.  Then his anger sought
+vent in violent assertion.  "But it can't be done!" he shouted.
+
+"You might ask Mr. Demarest," Mary suggested, pleasantly, "as to
+whether or not it can be done.  The gambling houses can do it,
+and so keep on breaking the law.  The race track men can do it,
+and laugh at the law.  The railroad can do it, to restrain its
+employees from striking.  So, why shouldn't I get one, too?  You
+see, I have money.  I can buy all the law I want.  And there's
+nothing you can't do with the law, if you have money enough....
+Ask Mr. Demarest.  He knows."
+
+Burke was fairly gasping over this outrage against his authority.
+
+"Can you beat that!" he rumbled with a raucously sonorous
+vehemence.  He regarded Mary with a stare of almost reverential
+wonder.  "A crook appealing to the law!" 
+
+There came a new note into the woman's voice as she answered the
+gibe.
+
+"No, simply getting justice," she said simply.  "That's the
+remarkable part of it."  She threw off her serious air.  "Well,
+gentlemen," she concluded, "what are you going to do about it?" 
+
+Burke explained.
+
+"This is what I'm going to do about it.  One way or another, I'm
+going to get you."
+
+The District Attorney, however, judged it advisable to use more
+persuasive methods.
+
+"Miss Turner," he said, with an appearance of sincerity, "I'm
+going to appeal to your sense of fair play."
+
+Mary's shining eyes met his for a long moment, and before the
+challenge in hers, his fell.  He remembered then those doubts
+that had assailed him when this girl had been sentenced to
+prison, remembered the half-hearted plea he had made in her
+behalf to Richard Gilder.
+
+"That was killed," Mary said, "killed four years ago."
+
+But Demarest persisted.  Influence had been brought to bear on
+him.  It was for her own sake now that he urged her.
+
+"Let young Gilder alone."
+
+Mary laughed again.  But there was no hint of joyousness in the
+musical tones.  Her answer was frank--brutally frank.  She had
+nothing to conceal.
+
+"His father sent me away for three years--three years for
+something I didn't do.  Well, he's got to pay for it."
+
+By this time, Burke, a man of superior intelligence, as one must
+be to reach such a position of authority, had come to realize
+that here was a case not to be carried through by blustering, by
+intimidation, by the rough ruses familiar to the force.  Here was
+a woman of extraordinary intelligence, as well as of peculiar
+personal charm, who merely made sport of his fulminations, and
+showed herself essentially armed against anything he might do, by
+a court injunction, a thing unheard of until this moment in the
+case of a common crook.  It dawned upon him that this was,
+indeed, not a common crook.  Moreover, there had grown in him a
+certain admiration for the ingenuity and resource of this woman,
+though he retained all his rancor against one who dared thus to
+resist the duly constituted authority. So, in the end, he spoke
+to her frankly, without a trace of his former virulence, with a
+very real, if rugged, sincerity.
+
+"Don't fool yourself, my girl," he said in his huge voice, which
+was now modulated to a degree that made it almost unfamiliar to
+himself.  "You can't go through with this.  There's always a weak
+link in the chain somewhere.  It's up to me to find it, and I
+will."
+
+His candor moved her to a like honesty.
+
+"Now," she said, and there was respect in the glance she gave the
+stalwart man, "now you really sound dangerous."
+
+There came an interruption, alike unexpected by all. Fannie
+appeared at the door.
+
+"Mr. Edward Gilder wishes to see you, Miss Turner," she said,
+with no appreciation of anything dynamic in the announcement. 
+"Shall I show him in?" 
+
+"Oh, certainly," Mary answered, with an admirable pretense of
+indifference, while Burke glared at Demarest, and the District
+Attorney appeared ill at ease.
+
+"He shouldn't have come," Demarest muttered, getting to his feet,
+in reply to the puzzled glance of the Inspector.
+
+Then, while Mary sat quietly in her chair at the desk, and the
+two men stood watching doubtfully the door, the maid appeared,
+stood aside, and said simply, "Mr. Gilder."
+
+There entered the erect, heavy figure of the man whom Mary had
+hated through the years.  He stopped abruptly just within the
+room, gave a glance at the two men, then his eyes went to Mary,
+sitting at her desk, with her face lifted inquiringly.  He did
+not pause to take in the beauty of that face, only its strength. 
+He stared at her silently for a moment.  Then he spoke in his
+oritund voice, a little tremulous from anxiety.
+
+"Are you the woman?"  he said.  There was something simple and
+primitive, something of dignity beyond the usual conventions, in
+his direct address.
+
+And there was the same primitive simplicity in the answer. 
+Between the two strong natures there was no subterfuge, no
+suggestion of polite evasions, of tergiversation, only the plea
+of truth to truth.  Mary's acknowledgment was as plain as his own
+question.
+
+"I am the woman.  What do you want?" ... Thus two honest folk had
+met face to face.
+
+"My son."  The man's answer was complete.
+
+But Mary touched a tragic note in her question.  It was asked in
+no frivolous spirit, but, of a sudden, she guessed that his
+coming was altogether of his own volition, and not the result of
+his son's information, as at first she had supposed.
+
+"Have you seen him recently?"  she asked.
+
+"No," Gilder answered.
+
+"Then, why did you come?" 
+
+Thereat, the man was seized with a fatherly fury. His heavy face
+was congested, and his sonorous voice was harsh with virtuous
+rebuke.
+
+"Because I intend to save my boy from a great folly. I am
+informed that he is infatuated with you, and Inspector Burke
+tells me why--he tells me--why--he tells me----" He paused,
+unable for a moment to continue from an excess of emotion.  But
+his gray eyes burned fiercely in accusation against her.
+
+Inspector Burke himself filled the void in the halting sentence.
+
+"I told you she had been an ex-convict."
+
+"Yes," Gilder said, after he had regained his self-control.  He
+stared at her pleadingly.  "Tell me," he said with a certain
+dignity, "is this true?" 
+
+Here, then, was the moment for which she had longed through weary
+days, through weary years.  Here was the man whom she hated,
+suppliant before her to know the truth.  Her heart quickened. 
+Truly, vengeance is sweet to one who has suffered unjustly.
+
+"Is this true?"  the man repeated, with something of horror in
+his voice.
+
+"It is," Mary said quietly.
+
+For a little, there was silence in the room.  Once, Inspector
+Burke started to speak, but the magnate made an imperative
+gesture, and the officer held his peace. Always, Mary rested
+motionless.  Within her, a fierce joy surged.  Here was the time
+of her victory.  Opposite her was the man who had caused her
+anguish, the man whose unjust action had ruined her life.  Now,
+he was her humble petitioner, but this servility could be of no
+avail to save him from shame.  He must drink of the dregs of
+humiliation--and then again.  No price were too great to pay for
+a wrong such as that which he had put upon her.
+
+At last, Gilder was restored in a measure to his self-possession. 
+He spoke with the sureness of a man of wealth, confident that
+money will salve any wound.
+
+"How much?"  he asked, baldly.
+
+Mary smiled an inscrutable smile.
+
+"Oh, I don't need money," she said, carelessly. "Inspector Burke
+will tell you how easy it is for me to get it."
+
+Gilder looked at her with a newly dawning respect; then his
+shrewdness suggested a retort.
+
+"Do you want my son to learn what you are?"  he said.
+
+Mary laughed.  There was something dreadful in that burst of
+spurious amusement.
+
+"Why not?"  she answered.  "I'm ready to tell him myself."
+
+Then Gilder showed the true heart of him, in which love for his
+boy was before all else.  He found himself wholly at a loss
+before the woman's unexpected reply.
+
+"But I don't want him to know," he stammered. "Why, I've spared
+the boy all his life.  If he really loves you--it will----"
+
+At that moment, the son himself entered hurriedly from the
+hallway.  In his eagerness, he saw no one save the woman whom he
+loved.  At his entrance, Mary rose and moved backward a step
+involuntarily, in sheer surprise over his coming, even though she
+had known he must come--perhaps from some other emotion, deeper,
+hidden as yet even from herself.
+
+The young man, with his wholesome face alight with tenderness,
+went swiftly to her, while the other three men stood silent,
+motionless, abashed by the event.  And Dick took Mary's hand in a
+warm clasp, pressed it tenderly.
+
+"I didn't see father," he said happily, "but I left him a note on
+his desk at the office."
+
+Then, somehow, the surcharged atmosphere penetrated his
+consciousness, and he looked around, to see his father standing
+grimly opposite him.  But there was no change in his expression
+beyond a more radiant smile.
+
+"Hello, Dad!" he cried, joyously.  "Then you got my note?" 
+
+The voice of the older man came with a sinister force and
+saturnine.
+
+"No, Dick, I haven't had any note."
+
+"Then, why?"  The young man broke off suddenly. He was become
+aware that here was something malignant, with a meaning beyond
+his present understanding, for he saw the Inspector and Demarest,
+and he knew the two of them for what they were officially.
+
+"What are they doing here?"  he demanded suspiciously, staring at
+the two.
+
+"Oh, never mind them," Mary said.  There was a malevolent gleam
+in her violet eyes.  This was the recompense of which she had
+dreamed through soul-tearing ages.  "Just tell your father your
+news, Dick."
+
+The young man had no comprehension of the fact that he was only a
+pawn in the game.  He spoke with simple pride.
+
+"Dad, we're married.  Mary and I were married this morning."
+
+Always, Mary stared with her eyes steadfast on the father.  There
+was triumph in her gaze.  This was the vengeance for which she
+had longed, for which she had plotted, the vengeance she had at
+last achieved.  Here was her fruition, the period of her
+supremacy.
+
+Gilder himself seemed dazed by the brief sentence.
+
+"Say that again," he commanded.
+
+Mary rejoiced to make the knowledge sure.
+
+"I married your son this morning," she said in a matter-of-fact
+tone.  "I married him.  Do you quite understand, Mr. Gilder?  I
+married him."  In that insistence lay her ultimate compensation
+for untold misery.  The father stood there wordless, unable to
+find speech against this calamity that had befallen him.
+
+It was Burke who offered a diversion, a crude interruption after
+his own fashion.
+
+"It's a frame-up," he roared.  He glared at the young man.  "Tell
+your father it ain't true.  Why, do you know what she is?  She's
+done time."  He paused for an instant, then spoke in a voice that
+was brutally menacing. "And, by God, she'll do it again!" 
+
+The young man turned toward his bride.  There was disbelief,
+hope, despair, in his face, which had grown older by years with
+the passing of the seconds.
+
+"It's a lie, Mary," he said.  "Say it's a lie!" He seized her
+hand passionately.
+
+There was no quiver in her voice as she answered. She drew her
+hand from his clasp, and spoke evenly.
+
+"It's the truth."
+
+"It's the truth!" the young man repeated, incredulously.
+
+"It is the truth," Mary said, firmly.  "I have served three years
+in prison."
+
+There was a silence of a minute that was like years. It was the
+father who broke it, and now his voice was become tremulous.
+
+"I wanted to save you, Dick.  That's why I came."
+
+The son interrupted him violently.
+
+"There's a mistake--there must be."
+
+It was Demarest who gave an official touch to the tragedy of the
+moment.
+
+"There's no mistake," he said.  There was authority in his
+statement.
+
+"There is, I tell you!" Dick cried, horrified by this conspiracy
+of defamation.  He turned his tortured face to his bride of a
+day.
+
+"Mary," he said huskily, "there is a mistake."
+
+Something in her face appalled him.  He was voiceless for a few
+terrible instants.  Then he spoke again, more beseechingly.
+
+"Say there's a mistake."
+
+Mary preserved her poise.  Yes--she must not forget! This was the
+hour of her triumph.  What mattered it that the honey of it was
+as ashes in her mouth?  She spoke with a simplicity that admitted
+no denial.
+
+"It's all quite true."
+
+The man who had so loved her, so trusted her, was overwhelmed by
+the revelation.  He stood trembling for a moment, tottered,
+almost it seemed would have fallen, but presently steadied
+himself and sank supinely into a chair, where he sat in impotent
+suffering.
+
+The father looked at Mary with a reproach that was pathetic.
+
+"See," he said, and his heavy voice was for once thin with
+passion," see what you've done to my boy!" 
+
+Mary had held her eyes on Dick.  There had been in her gaze a
+conflict of emotions, strong and baffling. Now, however, when the
+father spoke, her face grew more composed, and her eyes met his
+coldly.  Her voice was level and vaguely dangerous as she
+answered his accusation.
+
+"What is that compared to what you have done to me?" 
+
+Gilder stared at her in honest amazement.  He had no suspicion as
+to the tragedy that lay between him and her.
+
+"What have I done to you?"  he questioned, uncomprehending.
+
+Mary moved forward, passing beyond the desk, and continued her
+advance toward him until the two stood close together, face to
+face.  She spoke softly, but with an intensity of supreme feeling
+in her voice.
+
+"Do you remember what I said to you the day you had me sent
+away?" 
+
+The merchant regarded her with stark lack of understanding.
+
+"I don't remember you at all," he said.
+
+The woman looked at him intently for a moment, then spoke in a
+colorless voice.
+
+"Perhaps you remember Mary Turner, who was arrested four years
+ago for robbing your store.  And perhaps you remember that she
+asked to speak to you before they took her to prison."
+
+The heavy-jowled man gave a start.
+
+"Oh, you begin to remember.  Yes! There was a girl who swore she
+was innocent--yes, she swore that she was innocent.  And she
+would have got off--only, you asked the judge to make an example
+of her."
+
+The man to whom she spoke had gone gray a little. He began to
+understand, for he was not lacking in intelligence.  Somehow, it
+was borne in on him that this woman had a grievance beyond the
+usual run of injuries.
+
+"You are that girl?"  he said.  It was not a question, rather an
+affirmation.
+
+Mary spoke with the dignity of long suffering--more than that,
+with the confident dignity of a vengeance long delayed, now at
+last achieved.  Her words were simple enough, but they touched to
+the heart of the man accused by them.
+
+"I am that girl."
+
+There was a little interval of silence.  Then, Mary spoke again,
+remorselessly.
+
+"You took away my good name.  You smashed my life.  You put me
+behind the bars.  You owe for all that.... Well' I've begun to
+collect."
+
+The man opposite her, the man of vigorous form, of strong face
+and keen eyes, stood gazing intently for long moments.  In that
+time, he was learning many things.  Finally, he spoke.
+
+"And that is why you married my boy."
+
+"It is."  Mary gave the answer coldly, convincingly.
+
+Convincingly, save to one--her husband.  Dick suddenly aroused,
+and spoke with the violence of one sure.
+
+"It is not!" 
+
+Burke shouted a warning.  Demarest, more diplomatic, made a
+restraining gesture toward the police official, then started to
+address the young man soothingly.
+
+But Dick would have none of their interference.
+
+"This is my affair," he said, and the others fell silent. He
+stood up and went to Mary, and took her two hands in his, very
+gently, yet very firmly.
+
+"Mary," he said softly, yet with a strength of conviction, "you
+married me because you love me."
+
+The wife shuddered, but she strove to deny.
+
+"No," she said gravely, "no, I did not!" 
+
+"And you love me now!" he went on insistingly.
+
+"No, no!" Mary's denial came like a cry for escape.
+
+"You love me now!" There was a masterful quality in his
+declaration, which seemed to ignore her negation.
+
+"I don't," she repeated bitterly.
+
+But he was inexorable.
+
+"Look me in the face, and say that."
+
+He took her face in his hands, lifted it, and his eyes met hers
+searchingly.
+
+"Look me in the face, and say that," he repeated.
+
+There was a silence that seemed long, though it was measured in
+the passing of seconds.  The three watchers dared not interrupt
+this drama of emotions, but, at last, Mary, who had planned so
+long for this hour, gathered her forces and spoke valiantly.  Her
+voice was low, but without any weakness of doubt.
+
+"I do not love you."
+
+In the instant of reply, Dick Gilder, by some inspiration of
+love, changed his attitude. "Just the same," he said cheerfully,
+"you are my wife, and I'm going to keep you and make you love
+me."
+
+Mary felt a thrill of fear through her very soul.
+
+"You can't!" she cried harshly.  "You are his son!" 
+
+"She's a crook!" Burke said.
+
+"I don't care a damn what you've been!" Dick exclaimed. "From now
+on you'll go straight.  You'll walk the straightest line a woman
+ever walked.  You'll put all thoughts of vengeance out of your
+heart, because I'll fill it with something bigger--I'm going to
+make you love me."
+
+Burke, with his rousing voice, spoke again:
+
+"I tell you, she's a crook!" 
+
+Mary moved a little, and then turned her face toward Gilder.
+
+"And, if I am, who made me one?  You can't send a girl to prison,
+and have her come out anything else."
+
+Burke swung himself around in a movement of complete disgust.
+
+"She didn't get her time for good behavior."
+
+Mary raised her head, haughtily, with a gesture of high disdain.
+
+"And I'm proud of it!" came her instant retort.  "Do you know
+what goes on there behind those stone walls?  Do you, Mr.
+District Attorney, whose business it is to send girls there?  Do
+you know what a girl is expected to do, to get time off for good
+behavior?  If you don't, ask the keepers."
+
+Gilder moved fussily.
+
+"And you----"
+
+Mary swayed a little, standing there before her questioner.
+
+"I served every minute of my time--every minute of it, three
+full, whole years.  Do you wonder that I want to get even, that
+some one has got to pay?  Four years ago, you took away my
+name--and gave me a number.... Now, I've given up the number--and
+I've got your name."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. AFTERMATH OF TRAGEDY. 
+
+The Gilders, both father and son, endured much suffering
+throughout the night and day that followed the scene in Mary
+Turner's apartment, when she had made known the accomplishment of
+her revenge on the older man by her ensnaring of the younger. 
+Dick had followed the others out of her presence at her command,
+emphasized by her leaving him alone when he would have pleaded
+further with her.  Since then, he had striven to obtain another
+interview with his bride, but she had refused him.  He was denied
+admission to the apartment.  Only the maid answered the ringing
+of the telephone, and his notes were seemingly unheeded. 
+Distraught by this violent interjection of torment into a life
+that hitherto had known no important suffering, Dick Gilder
+showed what mettle of man lay beneath his debonair appearance. 
+And that mettle was of a kind worth while.  In these hours of
+grief, the soul of him put out its strength.  He learned beyond
+peradventure of doubt that the woman whom he had married was in
+truth an ex-convict, even as Burke and Demarest had declared. 
+Nevertheless, he did not for an instant believe that she was
+guilty of the crime with which she had been originally charged
+and for which she had served a sentence in prison.  For the rest,
+he could understand in some degree how the venom of the wrong
+inflicted on her had poisoned her nature through the years, till
+she had worked out its evil through the scheme of which he was
+the innocent victim.  He cared little for the fact that recently
+she had devoted herself to devious devices for making money, to
+ingenious schemes for legal plunder.  In his summing of her, he
+set as more than an offset to her unrighteousness in this regard
+the desperate struggle she had made after leaving prison to keep
+straight, which, as he learned, had ended in her attempt at
+suicide.  He knew the intelligence of this woman whom he loved,
+and in his heart was no thought of her faults as vital flaws.  It
+seemed to him rather that circumstances had compelled her, and
+that through all the suffering of her life she had retained the
+more beautiful qualities of her womanliness, for which he
+reverenced her.  In the closeness of their association, short as
+it had been, he had learned to know something of the tenderer
+depths within her, the kindliness of her, the wholesomeness. 
+Swayed as he was by the loveliness of her, he was yet more
+enthralled by those inner qualities of which the outer beauty was
+only the fitting symbol.
+
+So, in the face of this catastrophe, where a less love must have
+been destroyed utterly, Dick remained loyal. His passionate
+regard did not falter for a moment.  It never even occurred to
+him that he might cast her off, might yield to his father's
+prayers, and abandon her. On the contrary, his only purpose was
+to gain her for himself, to cherish and guard her against every
+ill, to protect with his love from every attack of shame or
+injury. He would not believe that the girl did not care for him. 
+Whatever had been her first purpose of using him only as an
+instrument through which to strike against his father, whatever
+might be her present plan of eliminating him from her life in the
+future, he still was sure that she had grown to know a real and
+lasting affection for himself.  He remembered startled glances
+from the violet eyes, caught unawares, and the music of her voice
+in rare instants, and these told him that love for him stirred,
+even though it might as yet be but faintly, in her heart.
+
+Out of that fact, he drew an immediate comfort in this period of
+his misery.  Nevertheless, his anguish was a racking one.  He
+grew older visibly in the night and the day.  There crept
+suddenly lines of new feeling into his face, and, too, lines of
+new strength.  The boy died in that time; the man was born, came
+forth in the full of his steadfastness and his courage, and his
+love.
+
+The father suffered with the son.  He was a proud man, intensely
+gratified over the commanding position to which he had achieved
+in the commercial world, proud of his business integrity, of his
+standing in the community as a leader, proud of his social
+position, proud most of all of the son whom he so loved.  Now,
+this hideous disaster threatened his pride at every turn--worse,
+it threatened the one person in the world whom he really loved. 
+Most fathers would have stormed at the boy when pleading failed,
+would have given commands with harshness, would have menaced the
+recalcitrant with disinheritance.  Edward Gilder did none of
+these things, though his heart was sorely wounded.  He loved his
+son too much to contemplate making more evil for the lad by any
+estrangement between them.  Yet he felt that the matter could not
+safely be left in the hands of Dick himself.  He realized that
+his son loved the woman--nor could he wonder much at that.  His
+keen eyes had perceived Mary Turner's graces of form, her
+loveliness of face.  He had apprehended, too, in some measure at
+least, the fineness of her mental fiber and the capacities of her
+heart.  Deep within him, denied any outlet, he knew there lurked
+a curious, subtle sympathy for the girl in her scheme of revenge
+against himself.  Her persistent striving toward the object of
+her ambition was something he could understand, since the like
+thing in different guise had been back of his own business
+success.  He would not let the idea rise to the surface of
+consciousness, for he still refused to believe that Mary Turner
+had suffered at his hand unjustly. He would think of her as
+nothing else than a vile creature, who had caught his son in the
+toils of her beauty and charm, for the purpose of eventually
+making money out of the intrigue.
+
+Gilder, in his library this night, was pacing impatiently to and
+fro, eagerly listening for the sound of his son's return to the
+house.  He had been the guest of honor that night at an important
+meeting of the Civic Committee, and he had spoken with his usual
+clarity and earnestness in spite of the trouble that beset him.
+Now, however, the regeneration of the city was far from his
+thought, and his sole concern was with the regeneration of a
+life, that of his son, which bade fair to be ruined by the wiles
+of a wicked woman.  He was anxious for the coming of Dick, to
+whom he would make one more appeal.  If that should fail--well,
+he must use the influences at his command to secure the forcible
+parting of the adventuress from his son.
+
+The room in which he paced to and fro was of a solid dignity,
+well fitted to serve as an environment for its owner.  It was
+very large, and lofty.  There was massiveness in the desk that
+stood opposite the hall door, near a window.  This particular
+window itself was huge, high, jutting in octagonal, with leaded
+panes. In addition, there was a great fireplace set with tiles,
+around which was woodwork elaborately carved, the fruit of
+patient questing abroad.  On the walls were hung some pieces of
+tapestry, where there were not bookcases.  Over the octagonal
+window, too, such draperies fell in stately lines.  Now, as the
+magnate paced back and forth, there was only a gentle light in
+the room, from a reading-lamp on his desk.  The huge chandelier
+was unlighted.... It was even as Gilder, in an increasing
+irritation over the delay, had thrown himself down on a couch
+which stood just a little way within an alcove, that he heard the
+outer door open and shut.  He sprang up with an ejaculation of
+satisfaction.
+
+"Dick, at last!" he muttered.
+
+It was, in truth, the son.  A moment later, he entered the room,
+and went at once to his father, who was standing waiting, facing
+the door.
+
+"I'm awfully sorry I'm so late, Dad," he said simply.
+
+"Where have you been?"  the father demanded gravely.  But there
+was great affection in the flash of his gray eyes as he scanned
+the young man's face, and the touch of the hand that he put on
+Dick's shoulder was very tender.  "With that woman again?" 
+
+The boy's voice was disconsolate as he replied:
+
+"No, father, not with her.  She won't see me."
+
+The older man snorted a wrathful appreciation.
+
+"Naturally!" he exclaimed with exceeding bitterness in the heavy
+voice.  "She's got all she wanted from you --my name!" He
+repeated the words with a grimace of exasperation: "My name!" 
+
+There was a novel dignity in the son's tone as he spoke.
+
+"It's mine, too, you know, sir," he said quietly.
+
+The father was impressed of a sudden with the fact that, while
+this affair was of supreme import to himself, it was, after all,
+of still greater significance to his son.  To himself, the chief
+concerns were of the worldly kind.  To this boy, the vital thing
+was something deeper, something of the heart: for, however absurd
+his feeling, the truth remained that he loved the woman.  Yes, it
+was the son's name that Mary Turner had taken, as well as that of
+his father.  In the case of the son, she had taken not only his
+name, but his very life.  Yes, it was, indeed, Dick's tragedy. 
+Whatever he, the father, might feel, the son was, after all, more
+affected.  He must suffer more, must lose more, must pay more
+with happiness for his folly.
+
+Gilder looked at his son with a strange, new respect, but he
+could not let the situation go without protest, protest of the
+most vehement.
+
+"Dick," he cried, and his big voice was shaken a little by the
+force of his emotion; "boy, you are all I have in the world.  You
+will have to free yourself from this woman somehow."  He stood
+very erect, staring steadfastly out of his clear gray eyes into
+those of his son.  His heavy face was rigid with feeling; the
+coarse mouth bent slightly in a smile of troubled fondness, as he
+added more softly: "You owe me that much."
+
+The son's eyes met his father's freely.  There was respect in
+them, and affection, but there was something else, too, something
+the older man recognized as beyond his control.  He spoke
+gravely, with a deliberate conviction.
+
+"I owe something to her, too, Dad."
+
+But Gilder would not let the statement go unchallenged. His heavy
+voice rang out rebukingly, overtoned with protest.
+
+"What can you owe her?"  he demanded indignantly. "She tricked
+you into the marriage.  Why, legally, it's not even that. 
+There's been nothing more than a wedding ceremony.  The courts
+hold that that is only a part of the marriage actually.  The fact
+that she doesn't receive you makes it simpler, too.  It can be
+arranged. We must get you out of the scrape."
+
+He turned and went to the desk, as if to sit, but he was halted
+by his son's answer, given very gently, yet with a note of
+finality that to the father's ear rang like the crack of doom.
+
+"I'm not sure that I want to get out of it, father."
+
+That was all, but those plain words summed the situation, made
+the issue a matter not of advice, but of the heart.
+
+Gilder persisted, however, in trying to evade the integral fact
+of his son's feeling.  Still he tried to fix the issue on the
+known unsavory reputation of the woman.
+
+"You want to stay married to this jail-bird!" he stormed.
+
+A gust of fury swept the boy.  He loved the woman, in spite of
+all; he respected her, even reverenced her. To hear her thus
+named moved him to a rage almost beyond his control.  But he
+mastered himself.  He remembered that the man who spoke loved
+him; he remembered, too, that the word of opprobrium was no more
+than the truth, however offensive it might be to his
+sensitiveness.  He waited a moment until he could hold his voice
+even.  Then his words were the sternest protest that could have
+been uttered, though they came from no exercise of thought, only
+out of the deeps of his heart.
+
+"I'm very fond of her."
+
+That was all.  But the simple sincerity of the saying griped the
+father's mood, as no argument could have done.  There was a
+little silence.  After all, what could meet such loving loyalty?
+
+When at last he spoke, Gilder's voice was subdued, a little
+husky.
+
+"Now, that you know?"  he questioned.
+
+There was no faltering in the answer.
+
+"Now, that I know," Dick said distinctly.  Then abruptly, the
+young man spoke with the energy of perfect faith in the woman. 
+"Don't you see, father?  Why, she is justified in a way, in her
+own mind anyhow, I mean.  She was innocent when she was sent to
+prison. She feels that the world owes her----"
+
+But the older man would not permit the assertion to go
+uncontradicted.  That reference to the woman's innocence was an
+arraignment of himself, for it had been he who sent her to the
+term of imprisonment.
+
+"Don't talk to me about her innocence!" he said, and his voice
+was ominous.  "I suppose next you will argue that, because she's
+been clever enough to keep within the law, since she's got out of
+State Prison, she's not a criminal.  But let me tell you--crime
+is crime, whether the law touches it in the particular case, or
+whether it doesn't."
+
+Gilder faced his son sternly for a moment, and then presently
+spoke again with deeper earnestness.
+
+"There's only one course open to you, my boy.  You must give this
+girl up."
+
+The son met his father's gaze with a level look in which there
+was no weakness.
+
+"I've told you, Dad----" he began.
+
+"You must, I tell you," the father insisted.  Then he went on
+quickly, with a tone of utmost positiveness.  "If you don't, what
+are you going to do the day your wife is thrown into a patrol
+wagon and carried to Police Headquarters--for it's sure to
+happen?  The cleverest of people make mistakes, and some day
+she'll make one."
+
+Dick threw out his hands in a gesture of supreme denial.  He was
+furious at this supposition that she would continue in her
+irregular practices.
+
+But the father went on remorselessly.
+
+"They will stand her up where the detectives will walk past her
+with masks on their faces.  Her picture, of course, is already in
+the Rogues' Gallery, but they will take another.  Yes, and the
+imprints of her fingers, and the measurements of her body."
+
+The son was writhing under the words.  The woman of whom these
+things were said was the woman whom he loved.  It was blasphemy
+to think of her in such case, subjected to the degradation of
+these processes. Yet, every word had in it the piercing, horrible
+sting of truth.  His face whitened.  He raised a supplicating
+hand.
+
+"Father!" 
+
+"That's what they will do to your wife," Gilder went on harshly;
+"to the woman who bears your name and mine."  There was a little
+pause, and the father stood rigid, menacing.  The final question
+came rasping. "What are you going to do about it?" 
+
+Dick went forward until he was close to his father. Then he spoke
+with profound conviction.
+
+"It will never happen.  She will go straight, Dad. That I know. 
+You would know it if you only knew her as I do."
+
+Gilder once again put his hand tenderly on his son's shoulder. 
+His voice was modulated to an unaccustomed mildness as he spoke.
+
+"Be sensible, boy," he pleaded softly.  "Be sensible!" 
+
+Dick dropped down on the couch, and made his answer very gently,
+his eyes unseeing as he dwelt on the things he knew of the woman
+he loved.
+
+"Why, Dad," he said, "she is young.  She's just like a child in a
+hundred ways.  She loves the trees and the grass and the
+flowers--and everything that's simple and real! And as for her
+heart--" His voice was low and very tender: "Why, her heart is
+the biggest I've ever known.  It's just overflowing with
+sweetness and kindness. I've seen her pick up a baby that had
+fallen in the street, and mother it in a way that--well, no one
+could do it as she did it, unless her soul was clean."
+
+The father was silent, a little awed.  He made an effort to shake
+off the feeling, and spoke with a sneer.
+
+"You heard what she said yesterday, and you still are such a fool
+as to think that."
+
+The answer of the son came with an immutable finality, the
+sublime faith of love.
+
+"I don't think--I know!" 
+
+Gilder was in despair.  What argument could avail him?  He cried
+out sharply in desperation.
+
+"Do you realize what you're doing?  Don't go to smash, Dick, just
+at the beginning of your life.  Oh, I beg you, boy, stop! Put
+this girl out of your thoughts and start fresh."
+
+The reply was of the simplest, and it was the end of argument.
+
+"Father," Dick said, very gently, "I can't."
+
+There followed a little period of quiet between the two.  The
+father, from his desk, stood facing his son, who thus denied him
+in all honesty because the heart so commanded.  The son rested
+motionless and looked with unflinching eyes into his father's
+face.  In the gaze of each was a great affection.
+
+"You're all I have, my boy," the older man said at last.  And now
+the big voice was a mildest whisper of love.
+
+"Yes, Dad," came the answer--another whisper, since it is hard to
+voice the truth of feeling such as this.  "If I could avoid it, I
+wouldn't hurt you for anything in the world.  I'm sorry, Dad,
+awfully sorry----" He hesitated, then his voice rang out clearly. 
+There was in his tone, when he spoke again, a recognition of that
+loneliness which is the curse and the crown of being:
+
+"But," he ended, "I must fight this out by myself--fight it out
+in my own way.... And I'm going to do it!" 
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. BURKE PLOTS. 
+
+The butler entered.
+
+"A man to see you, sir," he said.
+
+Gilder made a gesture of irritation, as he sank into the chair at
+his desk.
+
+"I can't see any one to-night, Thomas," he exclaimed, sharply.
+
+"But he said it was most important, sir," the servant went on. 
+He held out the tray insistently.
+
+The master took the card grudgingly.  As his eyes caught the
+name, his expression changed slightly.
+
+"Very well," he said, "show him up."  His glance met the
+wondering gaze of his son.
+
+"It's Burke," he explained.
+
+"What on earth can he want--at this time of night?"  Dick
+exclaimed.
+
+The father smiled grimly.
+
+"You may as well get used to visits from the police."  There was
+something ghastly in the effort toward playfulness.
+
+A moment later, Inspector Burke entered the room.
+
+"Oh, you're here, too," he said, as his eyes fell on Dick. 
+"That's good.  I wanted to see you, too."
+
+Inspector Burke was, in fact, much concerned over the situation
+that had developed.  He was a man of undoubted ability, and he
+took a keen professional pride in his work.  He possessed the
+faults of his class, was not too scrupulous where he saw a safe
+opportunity to make a snug sum of money through the employment of
+his official authority, was ready to buckle to those whose
+influence could help or hinder his ambition.  But, in spite of
+these ordinary defects, he was fond of his work and wishful to
+excel in it.  Thus, Mary Turner had come to be a thorn in his
+side.  She flouted his authority and sustained her incredible
+effrontery by a restraining order from the court.  The thing was
+outrageous to him, and he set himself to match her cunning. The
+fact that she had involved Dick Gilder within her toils made him
+the more anxious to overcome her in the strife of resources
+between them.  After much studying, he had at last planned
+something that, while it would not directly touch Mary herself,
+would at least serve to intimidate her, and as well make further
+action easier against her.  It was in pursuit of this scheme that
+he now came to Gilder's house, and the presence of the young man
+abruptly gave him another idea that might benefit him well.  So,
+he disregarded Gilder's greeting, and went on speaking to the
+son.
+
+"She's skipped!" he said, triumphantly.
+
+Dick made a step forward.  His eyes flashed, and there was anger
+in his voice as he replied:
+
+"I don't believe it."
+
+The Inspector smiled, unperturbed.
+
+"She left this morning for Chicago," he said, lying with a manner
+that long habit rendered altogether convincing.  "I told you
+she'd go."  He turned to the father, and spoke with an air of
+boastful good nature. "Now, all you have to do is to get this boy
+out of the scrape and you'll be all right."
+
+"If we only could!" The cry came with deepest earnestness from
+the lips of Gilder, but there was little hope in his voice.
+
+The Inspector, however, was confident of success, and his tones
+rang cheerfully as he answered:
+
+"I guess we can find a way to have the marriage annulled, or
+whatever they do to marriages that don't take."
+
+The brutal assurance of the man in thus referring to things that
+were sacred, moved Dick to wrath.
+
+"Don't you interfere," he said.  His words were spoken softly,
+but tensely.
+
+Nevertheless, Burke held to the topic, but an indefinable change
+in his manner rendered it less offensive to the young man.
+
+"Interfere! Huh!" he ejaculated, grinning broadly. "Why, that's
+what I'm paid to do.  Listen to me, son. The minute you begin
+mixing up with crooks, you ain't in a position to give orders to
+any one.  The crooks have got no rights in the eyes of the
+police.  Just remember that."
+
+The Inspector spoke the simple truth as he knew it from years of
+experience.  The theory of the law is that a presumption of
+innocence exists until the accused is proven guilty.  But the
+police are out of sympathy with such finical methods.  With them,
+the crook is presumed guilty at the outset of whatever may be
+charged against him.  If need be, there will be proof a-plenty
+against him--of the sort that the underworld knows to its sorrow.
+
+But Dick was not listening.  His thoughts were again wholly with
+the woman he loved, who, as the Inspector declared, had fled from
+him.
+
+"Where's she gone in Chicago?" 
+
+Burke answered in his usual gruff fashion, but with a note of
+kindliness that was not without its effect on Dick.
+
+"I'm no mind-reader," he said.  "But she's a swell little girl,
+all right.  I've got to hand it to her for that. So, she'll
+probably stop at the Blackstone--that is, until the Chicago
+police are tipped off that she is in town."
+
+Of a sudden, the face of the young man took on a totally
+different expression.  Where before had been anger, now was a
+vivid eagerness.  He went close to the Inspector, and spoke with
+intense seriousness.
+
+"Burke," he said, pleadingly, "give me a chance.  I'll leave for
+Chicago in the morning.  Give me twenty-four hours start before
+you begin hounding her."
+
+The Inspector regarded the speaker searchingly.  His heavy face
+was drawn in an expression of apparent doubt.  Abruptly, then, he
+smiled acquiescence.
+
+"Seems reasonable," he admitted.
+
+But the father strode to his son.
+
+"No, no, Dick," he cried.  "You shall not go! You shall not go!" 
+
+Burke, however, shook his head in remonstrance against Gilder's
+plea.  His huge voice came booming, weightily impressive.
+
+"Why not?"  he questioned.  "It's a fair gamble.  And, besides, I
+like the boy's nerve."
+
+Dick seized on the admission eagerly.
+
+"And you'll agree?"  he cried.
+
+"Yes, I'll agree," the Inspector answered.
+
+"Thank you," Dick said quietly.
+
+But the father was not content.  On the contrary, he went toward
+the two hurriedly, with a gesture of reproval.
+
+"You shall not go, Dick," he declared, imperiously.
+
+The Inspector shot a word of warning to Gilder in an aside that
+Dick could not hear.
+
+"Keep still," he replied.  "It's all right."
+
+Dick went on speaking with a seriousness suited to the magnitude
+of his interests.
+
+"You give me your word, Inspector," he said, "that you won't
+notify the police in Chicago until I've been there twenty-four
+hours?" 
+
+"You're on," Burke replied genially.  "They won't get a whisper
+out of me until the time is up."  He swung about to face the
+father, and there was a complete change in his manner.  "Now,
+then, Mr. Gilder," he said briskly, "I want to talk to you about
+another little matter----"
+
+Dick caught the suggestion, and interrupted quickly.
+
+"Then I'll go."  He smiled rather wanly at his father.  "You
+know, Dad, I'm sorry, but I've got to do what I think is the
+right thing."
+
+Burke helped to save the situation from the growing tenseness.
+
+"Sure," he cried heartily; "sure you have.  That's the best any
+of us can do."  He watched keenly as the young man went out of
+the room.  It was not until the door was closed after Dick that
+he spoke.  Then he dropped to a seat on the couch, and proceeded
+to make his confidences to the magnate.
+
+"He'll go to Chicago in the morning, you think, don't you?" 
+
+"Certainly," Gilder answered.  "But I don't like it."
+
+Burke slapped his leg with an enthusiasm that might have broken a
+weaker member.
+
+"Best thing that could have happened!" he vociferated. And then,
+as Gilder regarded him in astonishment, he added, chuckling: "You
+see, he won't find her there."
+
+"Why do you think that?"  Gilder demanded, greatly puzzled.
+
+Burke permitted himself the luxury of laughing appreciatively a
+moment more before making his exclamation.  Then he said quietly:
+
+"Because she didn't go there."
+
+"Where did she go, then?"  Gilder queried wholly at a loss.
+
+Once again the officer chuckled.  It was evident that he was well
+pleased with his own ingenuity.
+
+"Nowhere yet," he said at last.  "But, just about the time he's
+starting for the West I'll have her down at Headquarters. 
+Demarest will have her indicted before noon.  She'll go for trial
+in the afternoon.  And to-morrow night she'll be sleeping up the
+river.... That's where she is going."
+
+Gilder stood motionless for a moment.  After all, he was an
+ordinary citizen, quite unfamiliar with the recondite methods
+familiar to the police.
+
+"But," he said, wonderingly, "you can't do that."
+
+The Inspector laughed, a laugh of disingenuous amusement, for he
+understood perfectly the lack of comprehension on the part of his
+hearer.
+
+"Well," he said, and his voice sank into a modest rumble that was
+none the less still thunderous.  "Perhaps I can't!" And then he
+beamed broadly, his whole face smiling blandly on the man who
+doubted his power. "Perhaps I can't," he repeated.  Then the
+chuckle came again, and he added emphatically: "But I will!"
+Suddenly, his heavy face grew hard.  His alert eyes shone
+fiercely, with a flash of fire that was known to every patrolman
+who had ever reported to the desk when he was lieutenant.  His
+heavy jaw shot forward aggressively as he spoke.
+
+"Think I'm going to let that girl make a joke of the Police
+Department?  Why, I'm here to get her--to stop her anyhow.  Her
+gang is going to break into your house to-night."
+
+"What?"  Gilder demanded.  "You mean, she's coming here as a
+thief?" 
+
+"Not exactly," Inspector Burke confessed, "but her pals are
+coming to try to pull off something right here. She wouldn't
+come, not if I know her.  She's too clever for that.  Why, if she
+knew what Garson was planning to do, she'd stop him."
+
+The Inspector paused suddenly.  For a long minute his face was
+seamed with thought.  Then, he smote his thigh with a blow strong
+enough to kill an ox.  His face was radiant.
+
+"By God! I've got her!" he cried.  The inspiration for which he
+had longed was his at last.  He went to the desk where the
+telephone was, and took up the receiver.
+
+"Give me 3100 Spring," he said.  As he waited for the connection
+he smiled widely on the astonished Gilder. " 'Tain't too late,"
+he said joyously.  "I must have been losing my mind not to have
+thought of it before."  The impact of sounds on his ear from the
+receiver set him to attention.
+
+"Headquarters?"  he called.  "Inspector Burke speaking. Who's in
+my office?  I want him quick."  He smiled as he listened, and he
+spoke again to Gilder. "It's Smith, the best man I have.  That's
+luck, if you ask me."  Then again he spoke into the mouthpiece of
+the telephone.
+
+"Oh, Ed, send some one up to that Turner woman. You have the
+address.  Just see that she is tipped off, that Joe Garson and
+some pals are going to break into Edward Gilder's house to-night. 
+Get some stool-pigeon to hand her the information.  You'd better
+get to work damned quick.  Understand?" 
+
+The Inspector pulled out that watch of which Aggie Lynch had
+spoken so avariciously, and glanced at it, then went on speaking:
+
+"It's ten-thirty now.  She went to the Lyric Theater with some
+woman.  Get her as she leaves, or find her back at her own place
+later.  You'll have to hustle, anyhow.  That's all!" 
+
+The Inspector hung up the receiver and faced his host with a
+contented smile.
+
+"What good will all that do?"  Gilder demanded, impatiently.
+
+Burke explained with a satisfaction natural to one who had
+devised something ingenious and adequate. This inspiration filled
+him with delight.  At last he was sure of catching Mary Turner
+herself in his toils.
+
+"She'll come to stop 'em," he said.  "When we get the rest of the
+gang, we'll grab her, too.  Why, I almost forgot her, thinking
+about Garson.  Mr. Gilder, you would hardly believe it, but
+there's scarcely been a real bit of forgery worth while done in
+this country for the last twenty years, that Garson hasn't been
+mixed up in.  We've never once got him right in all that time." 
+The Inspector paused to chuckle.  "Crooks are funny," he
+explained with obvious contentment.  "Clever as he is, Garson let
+Griggs talk him into a second-story job, and now we'll get him
+with the goods.... Just call your man for a minute, will you, Mr.
+Gilder?" 
+
+Gilder pressed the electric button on his desk.  At the same
+moment, through the octagonal window came a blinding flash of
+light that rested for seconds, then vanished.  Burke, by no means
+a nervous man, nevertheless was startled by the mysterious
+radiance.
+
+"What's that?"  he demanded, sharply.
+
+"It's the flashlight from the Metropolitan Tower," Gilder
+explained with a smile over the policeman's perturbation.  "It
+swings around this way about every fifteen minutes.  The servant
+forgot to draw the curtains."  As he spoke, he went to the
+window, and pulled the heavy draperies close.  "It won't bother
+us again."
+
+The entrance of the butler brought the Inspector's thoughts back
+to the matter in hand.
+
+"My man," he said, authoritatively, "I want you to go up to the
+roof and open the scuttle.  You'll find some men waiting up
+there.  Bring 'em down here."
+
+The servant's usually impassive face showed astonishment, not
+unmixed with dismay, and he looked doubtfully toward his master,
+who nodded reassuringly.
+
+"Oh, they won't hurt you," the Inspector declared, as he noticed
+the man's hesitation.  "They're police officers. You get 'em down
+here, and then you go to bed and stay there till morning. 
+Understand?" 
+
+Again, the butler looked at his master for guidance in this very
+peculiar affair, as he deemed it.  Receiving another nod, he
+said:
+
+"Very well, sir."  He regarded the Inspector with a certain
+helpless indignation over this disturbance of the natural order,
+and left the room.
+
+Gilder himself was puzzled over the situation, which was by no
+means clear to him.
+
+"How do you know they're going to break into the house to-night?" 
+he demanded of Burke; "or do you only think they're going to
+break into the house?" 
+
+"I know they are."  The Inspector's harsh voice brought out the
+words boastfully.  "I fixed it."
+
+"You did!" There was wonder in the magnate's exclamation.
+
+"Sure," Burke declared complacently, "did it through a
+stool-pigeon."
+
+"Oh, an informer," Gilder interrupted, a little doubtfully.
+
+"Yes," Burke agreed.  "Stool-pigeon is the police name for him. 
+Really, he's the vilest thing that crawls."
+
+"But, if you think that," Gilder expostulated, "why do you have
+anything to do with that sort of person?" 
+
+"Because it's good business," the Inspector replied. "We know
+he's a spy and a traitor, and that every time he comes near us we
+ought to use a disinfectant.  But we deal with him just the
+same--because we have to. Now, the stool-pigeon in this trick is
+a swell English crook.  He went to Garson yesterday with a scheme
+to rob your house.  He tried out Mary Turner, too, but she
+wouldn't stand for it--said it would break the law, which is
+contrary to her principles.  She told Garson to leave it alone. 
+But he met Griggs afterward without her knowing anything about
+it, and then he agreed to pull it off.  Griggs got word to me
+that it's coming off to-night.  And so, you see, Mr. Gilder,
+that's how I know.  Do you get me?" 
+
+"I see," Gilder admitted without any enthusiasm.  As a matter of
+fact, he felt somewhat offended that his house should be thus
+summarily seized as a trap for criminals.
+
+"But why do you have your men come down over the roof?"  he
+inquired curiously.
+
+"It wasn't safe to bring them in the front way," was the
+Inspector's prompt reply.  "It's a cinch the house is being
+watched.  I wish you would let me have your latch-key.  I want to
+come back, and make this collar myself."
+
+The owner of the house obediently took the desired key from his
+ring and gave it to the Inspector with a shrug of resignation.
+
+"But, why not stay, now that you are here?"  he asked.
+
+"Huh!" Burke retorted.  "Suppose some of them saw me come in? 
+There wouldn't be anything doing until after they see me go out
+again."
+
+The hall door opened and the butler reentered the room.  Behind
+him came Cassidy and two other detectives in plain clothes.  At a
+word from his master, the disturbed Thomas withdrew with the
+intention of obeying the Inspector's directions that he should
+retire to bed and stay there, carefully avoiding whatever
+possibilities of peril there might be in the situation so foreign
+to his ideals of propriety.
+
+"Now," Burke went on briskly, as the door closed behind the
+servant, "where could these men stay out of sight until they're
+needed?" 
+
+There followed a little discussion which ended in the selection
+of a store-room at the end of the passage on the ground floor, on
+which one of the library doors opened.
+
+"You see," Burke explained to Gilder, when this matter had been
+settled to his satisfaction, and while Cassidy and the other
+detectives were out of the library on a tour of inspection, "you
+must have things right, when it comes to catching crooks on a
+frame-up like this.  I had these men come to Number Twenty-six on
+the other street, then round the block on the roofs."
+
+Gilder nodded appreciation which was not actually sincere.  It
+seemed to him that such elaborate manoeuvering was, in truth,
+rather absurd.
+
+"And now, Mr. Gilder," the Inspector said energetically, "I'm
+going to give you the same tip I gave your man.  Go to bed, and
+stay there."
+
+"But the boy," Gilder protested.  "What about him?  He's the one
+thing of importance to me."
+
+"If he says anything more about going to Chicago--just you let
+him go, that's all! It's the best place for him for the next few
+days.  I'll get in touch with you in the morning and let you know
+then how things are coming out."
+
+Gilder sighed resignedly.  His heavy face was lined with anxiety. 
+There was a hesitation in his manner of speech that was wholly
+unlike its usual quick decisiveness.
+
+"I don't like this sort of thing," he said, doubtfully. "I let
+you go ahead because I can't suggest any alternative, but I don't
+like it, not at all.  It seems to me that other methods might be
+employed with excellent results without the element of treachery
+which seems to involve me as well as you in our efforts to
+overcome this woman."
+
+Burke, however, had no qualms as to such plotting.
+
+"You must have crooked ways to catch crooks, believe me," he said
+cheerfully.  "It's the easiest and quickest way out of the
+trouble for us, and the easiest and quickest way into trouble for
+them."
+
+The return of the detectives caused him to break off, and he gave
+his attention to the final arrangements of his men.
+
+"You're in charge here," he said to Cassidy, "and I hold you
+responsible.  Now, listen to this, and get it."  His coarse voice
+came with a grating note of command. "I'm coming back to get this
+bunch myself, and I'll call you when you're wanted.  You'll wait
+in the store-room out there and don't make a move till you hear
+from me, unless by any chance things go wrong and you get a call
+from Griggs.  You know who he is.  He's got a whistle, and he'll
+use it if necessary.... Got that straight?"  And, when Cassidy
+had declared an entire understanding of the directions given, he
+concluded concisely. "On your way, then!" 
+
+As the men left the room, he turned again to Gilder.
+
+"Just one thing more," he said.  "I'll have to have your help a
+little longer.  After I've gone, I want you to stay up for a
+half-hour anyhow, with the lights burning. Do you see?  I want to
+be sure to give the Turner woman time to get here while that gang
+is at work. Your keeping on the lights will hold them back, for
+they won't come in till the house is dark, so, in half an hour
+you can get off the job, switch off the lights and go to bed and
+stay there--just as I told you before."  Then Inspector Burke,
+having in mind the great distress of the man over the unfortunate
+entanglement of his son, was at pains to offer a reassuring word.
+
+"Don't worry about the boy," he said, with grave kindliness. 
+"We'll get him out of this scrape all right."  And with the
+assertion he bustled out, leaving the unhappy father to miserable
+forebodings.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII. OUTSIDE THE LAW. 
+
+Gilder scrupulously followed the directions of the Police
+Inspector.  Uneasily, he had remained in the library until the
+allotted time was elapsed.  He fidgeted from place to place, his
+mind heavy with distress under the shadow that threatened to
+blight the life of his cherished son.  Finally, with a sense of
+relief he put out the lights and went to his chamber.  But he did
+not follow the further directions given him, for he was not
+minded to go to bed.  Instead, he drew the curtains closely to
+make sure that no gleam of light could pass them, and then sat
+with a cigar between his lips, which he did not smoke, though
+from time to time he was at pains to light it.  His thoughts were
+most with his son, and ever as he thought of Dick, his fury waxed
+against the woman who had enmeshed the boy in her plotting for
+vengeance on himself.  And into his thoughts now crept a doubt,
+one that alarmed his sense of justice.  It occurred to him that
+this woman could not have thus nourished a plan for retribution
+through the years unless, indeed, she had been insane, even as he
+had claimed--or innocent! The idea was appalling.  He could not
+bear to admit the possibility of having been the involuntary
+inflicter of such wrong as to send the girl to prison for an
+offense she had not committed.  He rejected the suggestion, but
+it persisted.  He knew the clean, wholesome nature of his son. 
+It seemed to him incredible that the boy could have thus given
+his heart to one altogether undeserving.  A horrible suspicion
+that he had misjudged Mary Turner crept into his brain, and would
+not out.  He fought it with all the strength of him, and that was
+much, but ever it abode there.  He turned for comfort to the
+things Burke had said.  The woman was a crook, and there was an
+end of it.  Her ruse of spoliation within the law was evidence of
+her shrewdness, nothing more.
+
+Mary Turner herself, too, was in a condition utterly wretched,
+and for the same cause--Dick Gilder.  That source of the father's
+suffering was hers as well.  She had won her ambition of years,
+revenge on the man who had sent her to prison.  And now the joy
+of it was a torture, for the puppet of her plans, the son, had
+suddenly become the chief thing in her life.  She had taken it
+for granted that he would leave her after he came to know that
+her marriage to him was only a device to bring shame on his
+father.  Instead, he loved her.  That fact seemed the secret of
+her distress.  He loved her. More, he dared believe, and to
+assert boldly, that she loved him.  Had he acted otherwise, the
+matter would have been simple enough.... But he loved her, loved
+her still, though he knew the shame that had clouded her life,
+knew the motive that had led her to accept him as a husband. 
+More--by a sublime audacity, he declared that she loved him.
+
+There came a thrill in her heart each time she thought of
+that--that she loved him.  The idea was monstrous, of course, and
+yet---- Here, as always, she broke off, a hot flush blazing in
+her cheeks.... Nevertheless, such curious fancies pursued her
+through the hours. She strove her mightiest to rid herself of
+them, but in vain.  Ever they persisted.  She sought to oust them
+by thinking of any one else, of Aggie, of Joe.  There at last was
+satisfaction.  Her interference between the man who had saved her
+life and the temptation of the English crook had prevented a
+dangerous venture, which might have meant ruin to the one whom
+she esteemed for his devotion to her, if for no other reason.  At
+least, she had kept him from the outrageous folly of an ordinary
+burglary.
+
+Mary Turner was just ready for bed after her evening at the
+theater, when she was rudely startled out of this belief.  A note
+came by a messenger who waited for no answer, as he told the
+yawning maid.  As Mary read the roughly scrawled message, she was
+caught in the grip of terror.  Some instinct warned her that this
+danger was even worse than it seemed.  The man who had saved her
+from death had yielded to temptation. Even now, he was engaged in
+committing that crime which she had forbidden him.  As he had
+saved her, so she must save him.  She hurried into the gown she
+had just put off.  Then she went to the telephone-book and
+searched for the number of Gilder's house.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+It was just a few moments before Mary Turner received the note
+from the hands of the sleepy maid that one of the leaves of the
+octagonal window in the library of Richard Gilder's town house
+swung open, under the persuasive influence of a thin rod of
+steel, cunningly used, and Joe Garson stepped confidently into
+the dark room.
+
+A faint radiance of moonlight from without showed him for a
+second as he passed between the heavy draperies. Then these fell
+into place, and he was invisible, and soundless as well.  For a
+space, he rested motionless, listening intently.  Reassured, he
+drew out an electric torch and set it glowing.  A little disc of
+light touched here and there about the room, traveling very
+swiftly, and in methodical circles.  Satisfied by the survey,
+Garson crossed to the hall door.  He moved with alert assurance,
+lithely balanced on the balls of his feet, noiselessly.  At the
+hall door he listened for any sound of life without, and found
+none.  The door into the passage that led to the store-room where
+the detectives waited next engaged his business-like attention.
+And here, again, there was naught to provoke his suspicion.
+
+These preliminaries taken as measures of precaution, Garson went
+boldly to the small table that stood behind the couch, turned the
+button, and the soft glow of an electric lamp illumined the
+apartment.  The extinguished torch was thrust back into his
+pocket.  Afterward he carried one of the heavy chairs to the door
+of the passage and propped it against the panel in such wise that
+its fall must give warning as to the opening of the door.  His
+every action was performed with the maximum of speed, with no
+least trace of flurry or of nervous haste.  It was evident that
+he followed a definite program, the fruit of precise thought
+guided by experience.
+
+It seemed to him that now everything was in readiness for the
+coming of his associates in the commission of the crime.  There
+remained only to give them the signal in the room around the
+corner where they waited at a telephone.  He seated himself in
+Gilder's chair at the desk, and drew the telephone to him.
+
+"Give me 999 Bryant," he said.  His tone was hardly louder than a
+whisper, but spoken with great distinctness.
+
+There was a little wait.  Then an answer in a voice he knew came
+over the wire.
+
+But Garson said nothing more.  Instead, he picked up a penholder
+from the tray on the desk, and began tapping lightly on the rim
+of the transmitter.  It was a code message in Morse.  In the room
+around the corner, the tapping sounded clearly, ticking out the
+message that the way was free for the thieves' coming.
+
+When Garson had made an end of the telegraphing, there came a
+brief answer in like Morse, to which he returned a short
+direction.
+
+For a final safeguard, Garson searched for and found the
+telephone bell-box on the surbase below the octagonal window.  It
+was the work of only a few seconds to unscrew the bells, which he
+placed on the desk.  So simply he made provision against any
+alarm from this  source.  He then took his pistol from his
+hip-pocket, examined it to make sure that the silencer was
+properly adjusted, and then thrust it into the right side-pocket
+of his coat, ready for instant use in desperate emergency. Once
+again, now, he produced the electric torch, and lighted it as he
+extinguished the lamp on the table.
+
+Forthwith, Garson went to the door into the hall, opened it, and,
+leaving it ajar, made his way in silence to the outer doorway. 
+Presently, the doors there were freed of their bolts under his
+skilled fingers, and one of them swung wide.  He had put out the
+torch now, lest its gleam might catch the gaze of some casual
+passer-by. So nicely had the affair been timed that hardly was
+the door open before the three men slipped in, and stood mute and
+motionless in the hall, while Garson refastened the doors.  Then,
+a pencil of light traced the length of the hallway and Garson
+walked quickly back to the library.  Behind him with steps as
+noiseless as his own came the three men to whom he had just given
+the message.
+
+When all were gathered in the library, Garson shut the hall door,
+touched the button in the wall beside it, and the chandelier
+threw its radiant light on the group.
+
+Griggs was in evening clothes, seeming a very elegant young
+gentleman indeed, but his two companions were of grosser type, as
+far as appearances went: one, Dacey, thin and wiry, with a ferret
+face; the other, Chicago Red, a brawny ruffian, whose stolid
+features nevertheless exhibited something of half-sullen good
+nature.
+
+"Everything all right so far," Garson said rapidly. He turned to
+Griggs and pointed toward the heavy hangings that shrouded the
+octagonal window.  "Are those the things we want?"  he demanded.
+
+"Yes," was the answer of English Eddie.
+
+"Well, then, we've got to get busy," Garson went on.  His alert,
+strong face was set in lines of eagerness that had in it
+something of fierceness now.
+
+But, before he could add a direction, he was halted by a soft
+buzzing from the telephone, which, though bell-less, still gave
+this faint warning of a call.  For an instant, he hesitated while
+the others regarded him doubtfully.  The situation offered
+perplexities.  To give no attention to the summons might be
+perilous, and failure to respond might provoke investigation in
+some urgent matter; to answer it might easily provide a larger
+danger.
+
+"We've got to take a chance."  Garson spoke his decision curtly. 
+He went to the desk and put the receiver to his ear.
+
+There came again the faint tapping of some one at the other end
+of the line, signaling a message in the Morse code.  An
+expression of blank amazement, which grew in a flash to deep
+concern, showed on Garson's face as he listened tensely.
+
+"Why, this is Mary calling," he muttered.
+
+"Mary!" Griggs cried.  His usual vacuity of expression was cast
+off like a mask and alarm twisted his features. Then, in the next
+instant, a crafty triumph gleamed from his eyes.
+
+"Yes, she's on," Garson interpreted, a moment later, as the
+tapping ceased for a little.  He translated in a loud whisper as
+the irregular ticking noise sounded again.
+
+"I shall be there at the house almost at once.  I am sending this
+message from the drug store around the corner.  Have some one
+open the door for me immediately."
+
+"She's coming over," Griggs cried incredulously.
+
+"No, I'll stop her," Garson declared firmly.
+
+"Right! Stop her," Chicago Red vouchsafed.
+
+But, when, after tapping a few words, the forger paused for the
+reply, no sound came.
+
+"She don't answer," he exclaimed, greatly disconcerted. He tried
+again, still without result.  At that, he hung up the receiver
+with a groan.  "She's gone----"
+
+"On her way already," Griggs suggested, and there was none to
+doubt that it was so.
+
+"What's she coming here for?"  Garson exclaimed harshly.  "This
+ain't no place for her! Why, if anything should go wrong now----"
+
+But Griggs interrupted him with his usual breezy cheerfulness of
+manner.
+
+"Oh, nothing can go wrong now, old top.  I'll let her in."  He
+drew a small torch from the skirt-pocket of his coat and crossed
+to the hall door, as Garson nodded assent.
+
+"God! Why did she have to come?"  Garson muttered, filled with
+forebodings.  "If anything should go wrong now!" 
+
+He turned back toward the door just as it opened, and Mary darted
+into the room with Griggs following. "What do you want here?"  he
+demanded, with peremptory savageness in his voice, which was a
+tone he had never hitherto used in addressing her.
+
+Mary went swiftly to face Garson where he stood by the desk,
+while Griggs joined the other two men who stood shuffling about
+uneasily by the fireplace, at a loss over this intrusion on their
+scheme.  Mary moved with a lissome grace like that of some wild
+creature, but as she halted opposite the man who had given her
+back the life she would have thrown away, there was only tender
+pleading in her voice, though her words were an arraignment.
+
+"Joe, you lied to me."
+
+"That can be settled later," the man snapped.  His jaw was thrust
+forward obstinately, and his clear eyes sparkled defiantly.
+
+"You are fools, all of you!" Mary cried.  Her eyes darkened and
+distended with fear.  They darted from Garson to the other three
+men, and back again in rebuke. "Yes, fools! This is burglary.  I
+can't protect you if you are caught.  How can I?  Oh, come!" She
+held out her hands pleadingly toward Garson, and her voice
+dropped to beseeching.  "Joe, Joe, you must get away from this
+house at once, all of you.  Joe, make them go."
+
+"It's too late," was the stern answer.  There was no least
+relaxation in the stubborn lines of his face.  "We're here now,
+and we'll stay till the business is done."
+
+Mary went a step forward.  The cloak she was wearing was thrown
+back by her gesture of appeal so that those watching saw the
+snowy slope of the shoulders and the quick rise and fall of the
+gently curving bosom. The beautiful face within the framing scarf
+was colorless with a great fear, save only the crimson lips, of
+which the bow was bent tremulously as she spoke her prayer.
+
+"Joe, for my sake!" 
+
+But the man was inexorable.  He had set himself to this thing,
+and even the urging of the one person in the world for whom he
+most cared was powerless against his resolve.
+
+"I can't quit now until we've got what we came here after," he
+declared roughly.
+
+Of a sudden, the girl made shift to employ another sort of
+supplication.
+
+"But there are reasons," she said, faltering.  A certain
+embarrassment swept her, and the ivory of her cheeks bloomed
+rosily.  "I--I can't have you rob this house, this particular
+house of all the world."  Her eyes leaped from the still obdurate
+face of the forger to the group of three back of him.  Her voice
+was shaken with a great dread as she called out to them.
+
+"Boys, let's get away! Please, oh, please! Joe, for God's sake!"
+Her tone was a sob.
+
+Her anguish of fear did not swerve Garson from his purpose.
+
+"I'm going to see this through," he said, doggedly.
+
+"But, Joe----"
+
+"It's settled, I tell you."
+
+In the man's emphasis the girl realized at last the inefficacy of
+her efforts to combat his will.  She seemed to droop visibly
+before their eyes.  Her head sank on her breast.  Her voice was
+husky as she tried to speak.
+
+"Then----" She broke off with a gesture of despair, and turned
+away toward the door by which she had entered.
+
+But, with a movement of great swiftness, Garson got in front of
+her, and barred her going.  For a few seconds the two stared at
+each other searchingly as if learning new and strange things,
+each of the other.  In the girl's expression was an outraged
+wonder and a great terror.  In the man's was a half-shamed pride,
+as if he exulted in the strength with which he had been able to
+maintain his will against her supreme effort to overthrow it.
+
+"You can't go," Garson said sharply.  "You might be caught."
+
+"And if I were," Mary demanded in a flash of indignation, "do you
+think I'd tell?" 
+
+There came an abrupt change in the hard face of the man.  Into
+the piercing eyes flamed a softer fire of tenderness. The firm
+mouth grew strangely gentle as he replied, and his voice was
+overtoned with faith.
+
+"Of course not, Mary," he said.  "I know you.  You would go up
+for life first."
+
+Then again his expression became resolute, and he spoke
+imperiously.
+
+"Just the same, you can't take any chances.  We'll all get away
+in a minute, and you'll come with us."  He turned to the men and
+spoke with swift authority.
+
+"Come," he said to Dacey, "you get to the light switch there by
+the hall door.  If you hear me snap my fingers, turn 'em off. 
+Understand?" 
+
+With instant obedience, the man addressed went to his station by
+the hall door, and stood ready to control the electric current.
+
+The distracted girl essayed one last plea.  The momentary
+softening of Garson had given her new courage.
+
+"Joe, don't do this."
+
+"You can't stop it now, Mary," came the brisk retort. "Too late. 
+You're only wasting time, making it dangerous for all of us."
+
+Again he gave his attention to carrying on the robbery.
+
+"Red," he ordered, "you get to that door."  He pointed to the one
+that gave on the passageway against which he had set the chair
+tilted.  As the man obeyed, Garson gave further instructions.
+
+"If any one comes in that way, get him and get him quick.  You
+understand?  Don't let him cry out."
+
+Chicago Red grinned with cheerful acceptance of the issue in such
+an encounter.  He held up his huge hand, widely open.
+
+"Not a chance," he declared, proudly, "with that over his mug." 
+To avoid possible interruption of his movements in an emergency,
+he removed the chair Garson had placed and set it to one side,
+out of the way.
+
+"Now, let's get to work," Garson continued eagerly. Mary spoke
+with the bitterness of defeat.
+
+"Listen, Joe! If you do this, I'm through with you. I quit."
+
+Garson was undismayed by the threat.
+
+"If this goes through," he countered, "we'll all quit. That's why
+I'm doing it.  I'm sick of the game."
+
+He turned to the work in hand with increased energy.
+
+"Come, you, Griggs and Red, and push that desk down a bit so that
+I can stand on it."  The two men bent to the task, heedless of
+Mary's frantic protest.
+
+"No! no! no! no! no, Joe!" 
+
+Red, however, suddenly straightened from the desk and stood
+motionless, listening.  He made a slight hissing noise that
+arrested the attention of the others and held them in moveless
+silence.
+
+"I hear something," he whispered.  He went to the keyhole of the
+door leading into the passage.  Then he whispered again, "And
+it's coming this way."
+
+At the words, Garson snapped his fingers.  The room was plunged
+in darkness.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. THE NOISELESS DEATH. 
+
+There was absolute silence in the library after the turning of
+the switch that brought the pall of darkness. Long seconds
+passed, then a little noise--the knob of the passage door
+turning.  As the door swung open, there came a gasping breath
+from Mary, for she saw framed in the faint light that came from
+the single burner in the corridor the slender form of her
+husband, Dick Gilder.  In the next instant he had stepped within
+the room and pulled to the door behind him.  And in that same
+instant Chicago Red had pounced on his victim, the huge hand
+clapped tight over the young man's mouth.  Even as his powerful
+arm held the newcomer in an inescapable embrace, there came a
+sound of scuffling feet and that was all.  Finally the big man's
+voice came triumphantly.
+
+"I've got him."
+
+"It's Dick!" The cry came as a wail of despair from the girl.
+
+At the same moment, Garson flashed his torch, and the light fell
+swiftly on young Gilder, bowed to a kneeling posture before the
+couch, half-throttled by the strength of Chicago Red.  Close
+beside him, Mary looked down in wordless despair over this final
+disaster of the night.  There was silence among the men, all of
+whom save the captor himself were gathered near the fireplace.
+
+Garson retired a step farther before he spoke his command, so
+that, though he held the torch still, he like the others was in
+shadow.  Only Mary was revealed clearly as she bent in alarm
+toward the man she had married.  It was borne in on the forger's
+consciousness that the face of the woman leaning over the
+intruder was stronger to hold the prisoner and to prevent any
+outcry than the might of Chicago Red himself, and so he gave the
+order.
+
+"Get away, Red."
+
+The fellow let go his grip obediently enough, though with a
+trifle of regret, since he gloried in his physical prowess.
+
+Thus freed of that strangling embrace, Dick stumbled blindly to
+his feet.  Then, mechanically, his hand went to the lamp on the
+table back of the couch.  In the same moment Garson snapped his
+torch to darkness. When, after a little futile searching, Dick
+finally found the catch, and the mellow streamed forth, he
+uttered an ejaculation of stark amazement, for his gaze was
+riveted on the face of the woman he loved.
+
+"Good God!" It was a cry of torture wrung from his soul of souls.
+
+Mary swayed toward him a little, palpitant with fear --fear for
+herself, for all of them, most of all for him.
+
+"Hush! hush!" she panted warningly.  "Oh, Dick, you don't
+understand."
+
+Dick's hand was at his throat.  It was not easy for him to speak
+yet.  He had suffered severely in the process of being throttled,
+and, too, he was in the clutch of a frightful emotion.  To find
+her, his wife, in this place, in such company--her, the woman
+whom he loved, whom, in spite of everything, he had honored, the
+woman to whom he had given his name! Mary here! And thus!
+
+"I understand this," he said brokenly at last. "Whether you ever
+did it before or not, this time you have broken the law."  A
+sudden inspiration on his own behalf came to him.  For his love's
+sake, he must seize on this opportunity given of fate to him for
+mastery. He went on with a new vehemence of boldness that became
+him well.
+
+"You're in my hands now.  So are these men as well. Unless you do
+as I say, Mary, I'll jail every one of them."
+
+Mary's usual quickness was not lacking even now, in this period
+of extremity.  Her retort was given without a particle of
+hesitation.
+
+"You can't," she objected with conviction.  "I'm the only one
+you've seen."
+
+"That's soon remedied," Dick declared.  He turned toward the hall
+door as if with the intention of lighting the chandelier.
+
+But Mary caught his arm pleadingly.
+
+"Don't, Dick," she begged.  "It's--it's not safe."
+
+"I'm not afraid," was his indignant answer.  He would have gone
+on, but she clung the closer.  He was reluctant to use over-much
+force against the one whom he cherished so fondly.
+
+There came a diversion from the man who had made the capture, who
+was mightily wondering over the course of events, which was
+wholly unlike anything in the whole of his own rather extensive
+housebreaking experience.
+
+"Who's this, anyhow?"  Chicago Red demanded.
+
+There was a primitive petulance in his drawling tones.
+
+Dick answered with conciseness enough.
+
+"I'm her husband.  Who are you?" 
+
+Mary called a soft admonition.
+
+"Don't speak, any of you," she directed.  "You mustn't let him
+hear your voices."
+
+Dick was exasperated by this persistent identification of herself
+with these criminals in his father's house.
+
+"You're fighting me like a coward," he said hotly. His voice was
+bitter.  The eyes that had always been warm in their glances on
+her were chill now.  He turned a little way from her, as if in
+instinctive repugnance.  "You are taking advantage of my love. 
+You think that because of it I can't make a move against these
+men.  Now, listen to me, I----"
+
+"I won't!" Mary cried.  Her words were shrill with mingled
+emotions.  "There's nothing to talk about," she went on wildly. 
+"There never can be between you and me."
+
+The young man's voice came with a sonorous firmness that was new
+to it.  In these moments, the strength of him, nourished by
+suffering, was putting forth its flower. His manner was
+masterful.
+
+"There can be and there will be," he contradicted. He raised his
+voice a little, speaking into the shadows where was the group of
+silent men.
+
+"You men back there!" he cried.  "If I give you my word to let
+every one of you go free and pledge myself never to recognize one
+of you again, will you make Mary here listen to me?  That's all I
+ask.  I want a few minutes to state my case.  Give me that. 
+Whether I win or lose, you men go free, and I'll forget
+everything that has happened here to-night."  There came a
+muffled guffaw of laughter from the big chest of Chicago Red at
+this extraordinarily ingenuous proposal, while Dacey chuckled
+more quietly.
+
+Dick made a gesture of impatience at this open derision.
+
+"Tell them I can be trusted," he bade Mary curtly.
+
+It was Garson who answered.
+
+"I know that you can be trusted," he said, "because I know you
+lo----" He checked himself with a shiver, and out of the darkness
+his face showed white.
+
+"You must listen," Dick went on, facing again toward the girl,
+who was trembling before him, her eyes by turns searching his
+expression or downcast in unfamiliar confusion, which she herself
+could hardly understand.
+
+"Your safety depends on me," the young man warned. "Suppose I
+should call for help?" 
+
+Garson stepped forward threateningly.
+
+"You would only call once," he said very gently, yet most grimly. 
+His hand went to the noiseless weapon in his coat-pocket.
+
+But the young man's answer revealed the fact that he, too, was
+determined to the utmost, that he understood perfectly the
+situation.
+
+"Once would be quite enough," he said simply.
+
+Garson nodded in acceptance of the defeat.  It may be, too, that
+in some subtle fashion he admired this youth suddenly grown
+resolute, competent to control a dangerous event.  There was even
+the possibility that some instinct of tenderness toward Mary
+herself made him desire that this opportunity should be given for
+wiping out the effects of misfortune which fate hitherto had
+brought into her life.
+
+"You win," Garson said, with a half-laugh.  He turned to the
+other men and spoke a command.
+
+"You get over by the hall door, Red.  And keep your ears open
+every second.  Give us the office if you hear anything.  If we're
+rushed, and have to make a quick get-away, see that Mary has the
+first chance.  Get that, all of you?" 
+
+As Chicago Red took up his appointed station, Garson turned to
+Dick.
+
+"Make it quick, remember."
+
+He touched the other two and moved back to the wall by the
+fireplace, as far as possible from the husband and wife by the
+couch.
+
+Dick spoke at once, with a hesitancy that betrayed the depth of
+his emotion.
+
+"Don't you care for me at all?"  he asked wistfully.
+
+The girl's answer was uttered with nervous eagerness which
+revealed her own stress of fear.
+
+"No, no, no!" she exclaimed, rebelliously.
+
+Now, however, the young man had regained some measure of
+reassurance.
+
+"I know you do, Mary," he asserted, confidently; "a little,
+anyway.  Why, Mary," he went on reproachfully, "can't you see
+that you're throwing away everything that makes life worth while? 
+Don't you see that?" 
+
+There was no word from the girl.  Her breast was moving
+convulsively.  She held her face steadfastly averted from the
+face of her husband.
+
+"Why don't you answer me?"  he insisted.
+
+Mary's reply came with all the coldness she could command.
+
+"That was not in the bargain," Mary said, indifferently.
+
+The man's voice grew tenderly winning, persuasive with the
+longing of a lover, persuasive with the pity of the righteous for
+the sinner.
+
+"Mary, Mary!" he cried.  "You've got to change. Don't be so hard. 
+Give the woman in you a chance."
+
+The girl's form became rigid as she fought for self-control.  The
+plea touched to the bottom of her heart, but she could not, would
+not yield.  Her words rushed forth with a bitterness that was the
+cover of her distress.
+
+"I am what I am," she said sharply.  "I can't change. Keep your
+promise, now, and let's get out of this."
+
+Her assertion was disregarded as to the inability to change.
+
+"You can change," Dick went on impetuously. "Mary, haven't you
+ever wanted the things that other women have, shelter, and care,
+and the big things of life, the things worth while?  They're all
+ready for you, now, Mary.... And what about me?"  Reproach leaped
+in his tone.  "After all, you've married me.  Now it's up to you
+to give me my chance to make good.  I've never amounted to much. 
+I've never tried much.  I shall, now, if you will have it so,
+Mary; if you'll help me.  I will come out all right, I know
+that--so do you, Mary.  Only, you must help me."
+
+"I help you!" The exclamation came from the girl in a note of
+incredulous astonishment.
+
+"Yes," Dick said, simply.  "I need you, and you need me.  Come
+away with me."
+
+"No, no!" was the broken refusal.  There was a great grief
+clutching at the soul of this woman who had brought vengeance to
+its full flower.  She was gasping. "No, no! I married you, not
+because I loved you, but to repay your father the wrong he had
+done me.  I wouldn't let myself even think of you, and then--I
+realized that I had spoiled your life."
+
+"No, not spoiled it, Mary! Blessed it! We must prove that yet."
+
+"Yes, spoiled it," the wife went on passionately.  "If I had
+understood, if I could have dreamed that I could ever care----
+Oh, Dick, I would never have married you for anything in the
+world."
+
+"But now you do realize," the young man said quietly. "The thing
+is done.  If we made a mistake, it is for us to bring happiness
+out of that error."
+
+"Oh, can't you see?"  came the stricken lament.  "I'm a
+jail-bird!" 
+
+"But you love me--you do love me, I know!" The young man spoke
+with joyous certainty, for some inflection of her voice had told
+the truth to his heart. Nothing else mattered.  "But now, to come
+back to this hole we're in here.  Don't you understand, at last,
+that you can't beat the law?  If you're caught here to-night,
+where would you get off--caught here with a gang of burglars? 
+Tell me, dear, why did you do it?  Why didn't you protect
+yourself?  Why didn't you go to Chicago as you planned?" 
+
+"What?"  There was a new quality in Mary's voice. A sudden throb
+of shock masked in the surface indifference of intonation.
+
+Dick repeated his question, unobservant of its first effect.
+
+"Why didn't you go to Chicago as you had planned?" 
+
+"Planned?  With whom?"  The interrogation came with an abrupt
+force that cried of new suspicions.
+
+"Why, with Burke."  The young man tried to be patient over her
+density in this time of crisis.
+
+"Who told you that I had arranged any such thing?"  Mary asked. 
+Now the tenseness in her manner got the husband's attention, and
+he replied with a sudden gravity, apprehensive of he knew not
+what.
+
+"Burke himself did."
+
+"When?"  Mary was standing rigid now, and the rare color flamed
+in her cheeks.  Her eyes were blazing.
+
+"Less than an hour ago."  He had caught the contagion of her mood
+and vague alarm swept him.
+
+"Where?"  came the next question, still with that vital
+insistence.
+
+"In this room."
+
+"Burke was here?"  Mary's voice was suddenly cold, very
+dangerous.  "What was he doing here?" 
+
+"Talking to my father."
+
+The seemingly simple answer appeared the last straw to the girl's
+burden of frenzied suspicion.  Her voice cut fiercely into the
+quiet of the room, imperious, savage.
+
+"Joe, turn on that light! I want to see the face of every man in
+this room."
+
+Something fatally significant in her voice set Garson a-leap to
+the switch, and, in the same second, the blaze of the chandelier
+flamed brilliantly over all.  The others stood motionless,
+blinking in the sudden radiance--all save Griggs, who moved
+stealthily in that same moment, a little nearer the door into the
+passage, which was nearest to him.
+
+But Mary's next words came wholly as a surprise, seemingly
+totally irrelevant to this instant of crisis.  Yet they rang
+a-throb with an hysterical anxiety.
+
+"Dick," she cried, "what are those tapestries worth?"  With the
+question, she pointed toward the draperies that shrouded the
+great octagonal window.
+
+The young man was plainly astonished, disconcerted as well by the
+obtrusion of a sordid detail into the tragedy of the time.
+
+"Why in the world do you----?"  he began, impatiently.
+
+Mary stamped her foot angrily in protest against the delay.
+
+"Tell me--quick!" she commanded.  The authority in her voice and
+manner was not to be gainsaid.
+
+Dick yielded sullenly.
+
+"Oh, two or three hundred dollars, I suppose," he answered. 
+"Why?" 
+
+"Never mind that!" Mary exclaimed, violently.  And now the girl's
+voice came stinging like a whiplash.  In Garson's face, too, was
+growing fury, for in an instant of illumination he guessed
+something of the truth. Mary's next question confirmed his raging
+suspicion.
+
+"How long have you had them, Dick?" 
+
+By now, the young man himself sensed the fact that something
+mysteriously baneful lay behind the frantic questioning on this
+seemingly trivial theme.
+
+"Ever since I can remember," he replied, promptly.
+
+Mary's voice came then with an intonation that brought
+enlightenment not only to Garson's shrewd perceptions, but also
+to the heavier intelligences of Dacey and of Chicago Red.
+
+"And they're not famous masterpieces which your father bought
+recently, from some dealer who smuggled them into this country?" 
+So simple were the words of her inquiry, but under them beat
+something evil, deadly.
+
+The young man laughed contemptuously.
+
+"I should say not!" he declared indignantly, for he resented the
+implication against his father's honesty.
+
+"It's a trick! Burke's done it!" Mary's words came with accusing
+vehemence.
+
+There was another single step made by Griggs toward the door into
+the passage.
+
+Mary's eye caught the movement, and her lips soundlessly formed
+the name:
+
+"Griggs!" 
+
+The man strove to carry off the situation, though he knew well
+that he stood in mortal peril.  He came a little toward the girl
+who had accused him of treachery. He was very dapper in his
+evening clothes, with his rather handsome, well-groomed face set
+in lines of innocence.
+
+"He's lying to you!" he cried forcibly, with a scornful gesture
+toward Dick Gilder.  "I tell you, those tapestries are worth a
+million cold."
+
+Mary's answer was virulent in its sudden burst of hate.  For
+once, the music of her voice was lost in a discordant cry of
+detestation.
+
+"You stool-pigeon! You did this for Burke!" 
+
+Griggs sought still to maintain his air of innocence, and he
+strove well, since he knew that he fought for his life against
+those whom he had outraged.  As he spoke again, his tones were
+tremulous with sincerity--perhaps that tremulousness was born
+chiefly of fear, yet to the ear his words came stoutly enough for
+truth:
+
+"I swear I didn't! I swear it!" 
+
+Mary regarded the protesting man with abhorrence. The perjured
+wretch shrank before the loathing in her eyes.
+
+"You came to me yesterday," she said, with more of restraint in
+her voice now, but still with inexorable rancor. "You came to me
+to explain this plan.  And you came from him--from Burke!" 
+
+"I swear I was on the level.  I was tipped off to the story by a
+pal," Griggs declared, but at last the assurance was gone out of
+his voice.  He felt the hostility of those about him.
+
+Garson broke in ferociously.
+
+"It's a frame-up!" he said.  His tones came in a deadened roar of
+wrath.
+
+On the instant, aware that further subterfuge could be of no
+avail, Griggs swaggered defiance.
+
+"And what if it is true?"  he drawled, with a resumption of his
+aristocratic manner, while his eyes swept the group balefully. 
+He plucked the police whistle from his waistcoat-pocket, and
+raised it to his lips.
+
+He moved too slowly.  In the same moment of his action, Garson
+had pulled the pistol from his pocket, had pressed the trigger. 
+There came no spurt of flame. There was no sound--save perhaps a
+faint clicking noise.  But the man with the whistle at his lips
+suddenly ceased movement, stood absolutely still for the space of
+a breath.  Then, he trembled horribly, and in the next instant
+crashed to the floor, where he lay rigid, dead.
+
+"Damn you--I've got you!" Garson sneered through clenched teeth. 
+His eyes were like balls of fire.  There was a frightful grin of
+triumph twisting his mouth in this minute of punishment.
+
+In the first second of the tragedy, Dick had not understood. 
+Indeed, he was still dazed by the suddenness of it all.  But the
+falling of Griggs before the leveled weapon of the other man,
+there to lie in that ghastly immobility, made him to understand. 
+He leaped toward Garson--would have wrenched the pistol from the
+other's grasp.  In the struggle, it fell to the floor.
+
+Before either could pick it up, there came an interruption. Even
+in the stress of this scene, Chicago Red had never relaxed his
+professional caution.  A slight noise had caught his ear, he had
+stooped, listening. Now, he straightened, and called his warning.
+
+"Somebody's opening the front door!" 
+
+Garson forgot his weapon in this new alarm.  He sprang to the
+octagonal window, even as Dick took possession of the pistol.
+
+"The street's empty! We must jump for it!" His hate was forgotten
+now in an emotion still deeper, and he turned to Mary.  His face
+was all gentleness again, where just before it had been evil
+incarnate, aflame with the lust to destroy.  "Come on, Mary," he
+cried.
+
+Already Chicago Red had snapped off the lights of the chandelier,
+had sprung to the window, thrown open a panel of it, and had
+vanished into the night, with Dacey at his heels.  As Garson
+would have called out to the girl again in mad anxiety for haste,
+he was interrupted by Dick:
+
+"She couldn't make it, Garson," he declared coolly and
+resolutely.  "You go.  It'll be all right, you know. I'll take
+care of her!" 
+
+"If she's caught----!" There was an indescribable menace in the
+forger's half-uttered threat.
+
+"She won't be."  The quality of sincerity in Dick's voice was
+more convincing than any vow might have been.
+
+"If she is, I'll get you, that's all," Garson said gravely, as
+one stating a simple fact that could not be disputed.
+
+Then he glanced down at the body of the man whom he had done to
+death.
+
+"And you can tell that to Burke!" he said viciously to the dead. 
+"You damned squealer!" There was a supremely malevolent content
+in his sneer.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX. WITHIN THE TOILS. 
+
+The going of Garson left the room deathly still. Dick stared for
+a moment at the space of window left uncovered by the draperies
+now, since the man had hurried past them, without pausing to draw
+them after him. Then, presently, the young man turned again to
+Mary, and took her hand in his.  The shock of the event had
+somehow steadied him, since it had drawn his thoughts from that
+other more engrossing mood of concern over the crisis in his own
+life.  After all, what mattered the death of this crook?  his
+fancy ran.  The one thing of real worth in all the world was the
+life that remained to be lived between him and her.... Then,
+violently, the selfishness of his mood was made plain to him. 
+For the hand he held was shaking like some slender-stalked lily
+in the clutch of the sirocco.  Even as he first perceived the
+fact, he saw the girl stagger.  His arm swept about her in a
+virile protecting embrace--just in time, or she would have
+fallen.
+
+A whisper came from her quivering lips.  Her face was close to
+his, else he could not have caught the uncertain murmuring.  That
+face now was become ghastly pale.  The violet eyes were widened
+and dull.  The muscles of her face twitched.  She rested supinely
+against him, as if bereft of any strength of body or of soul. 
+Yet, in the intensity of her utterance, the feeble whisper struck
+like a shriek of horror.
+
+"I--I--never saw any one killed before!" 
+
+The simple, grisly truth of the words--words that he might have
+spoken as well--stirred the man to the deeps of his being.  He
+shuddered, as he turned his eyes to avoid seeing the thing that
+lay so very near, mercifully merged within the shadows beyond the
+gentle radiance from the single lamp.  With a pang of infinite
+pity for the woman in his arms, he apprehended in some degree the
+torture this event must have inflicted on her. Frightful to him,
+it must in truth be vastly worse to her. There was her womanly
+sensitiveness to enhance the innate hideousness of the thing that
+had been done here before their eyes.  There was, too, the fact
+that the murderer himself had been the man to whom she owed her
+life.  Yes, for him, Dick realized with poignant sympathy, the
+happening that night was terrible indeed: for her, as he guessed
+now at last, the torture must be something easily to overwhelm
+all her strength.  His touch on her grew tender beyond the
+ordinary tenderness of love, made gentler by a great underlying
+compassion for her misery.
+
+Dick drew Mary toward the couch, there let her sink down in a
+huddled attitude of despair.
+
+"I never saw a man--killed before!" she said again. There was a
+note of half-hysterical, almost childish complaint in her voice. 
+She moved her head a little, as if to look into the shadows where
+*IT lay, then checked herself violently, and looked up at her
+husband with the pathetic simplicity of terror.
+
+"You know, Dick," she repeated dully, "I never saw a man killed
+before."
+
+Before he could utter the soothing words that rose to his lips,
+Dick was interrupted by a slight sound at the door.  Instantly,
+he was all alert to meet the exigencies of the situation.  He
+stood by the couch, bending forward a little, as if in a posture
+of intimate fondness. Then, with a new thought, he got out his
+cigarette-case and lighted a cigarette, after which he resumed
+his former leaning over the woman as would the ardent lover.  He
+heard the noise again presently, now so near that he made sure of
+being overheard, so at once he spoke with a forced cheerfulness
+in his inflection.
+
+"I tell you, Mary," he declared, "everything's going to be all
+right for you and me.  It was bully of you to come here to me
+like this."
+
+The girl made no response.  She lived still in the nightmare of
+murder--that nightmare wherein she had seen Griggs fall dead to
+the floor.
+
+Dick, in nervous apprehension as to the issue, sought to bring
+her to realization of the new need that had come upon them.
+
+"Talk to me," he commanded, very softly.  "They'll be here in a
+minute.  When they come in, pretend you just came here in order
+to meet me.  Try, Mary.  You must, dearest!" Then, again, his
+voice rose to loudness, as he continued.  "Why, I've been trying
+all day to see you.  And, now, here we are together, just as I
+was beginning to get really discouraged.... I know my father will
+eventually----"
+
+He was interrupted by the swift swinging open of the hallway
+door.  Burke stood just within the library, a revolver pointed
+menacingly.
+
+"Hands up!--all of you!" The Inspector's voice fairly roared the
+command.
+
+The belligerent expression of his face vanished abruptly, as his
+eyes fell on Dick standing by the couch and Mary reclining there
+in limp helplessness.  His surprise would have been ludicrous but
+for the seriousness of the situation to all concerned.  Burke's
+glance roved the room sharply, and he was quickly convinced that
+these two were in fact the only present spoil of his careful
+plotting. His face set grimly, for the disappointment of this
+minute surged fiercely within him.  He started to speak, his eyes
+lowering as he regarded the two before him.
+
+But Dick forestalled him.  He spoke in a voice coldly repellent.
+
+"What are you doing in this house at this time of night?"  he
+demanded.  His manner was one of stern disapproval.  "I recognize
+you, Inspector Burke.  But you must understand that there are
+limits even to what you can do.  It seems to me, sir, that you
+exceed your authority by such an intrusion as this."
+
+Burke, however, was not a whit dismayed by the rebuke and the air
+of rather contemptuous disdain with which it was uttered.  He
+waved his revolver toward Mary, merely as a gesture of
+inquisitiveness, without any threat.
+
+"What's she doing here?"  he asked.  There was wrath in his rough
+voice, for he could not avoid the surmise that his shrewdly
+concocted scheme to entrap this woman had somehow been set awry. 
+"What's she doing here, I say?"  he repeated heavily.  His keen
+eyes were darting once more about the room, questing some clue to
+this disturbing mystery, so hateful to his pride.
+
+Dick's manner became that of the devoted husband offended by
+impertinent obtrusion.
+
+"You forget yourself, Inspector," he said, icily.  "This is my
+wife.  She has the right to be with me--her husband!" 
+
+The Inspector grinned sceptically.  He was moved no more
+effectively by Mary's almost hysterical effort to respond to her
+husband's leading.
+
+"Why shouldn't I be here?  Why?  Why?  I----"
+
+Burke broke in on the girl's pitiful histrionics ruthlessly.  He
+was not in the least deceived.  He was aware that something
+untoward, as he deemed it, had occurred.  It seemed to him, in
+fact, that his finical mechanisms for the undoing of Mary Turner
+were in a fair way to be thwarted.  But he would not give up the
+cause without a struggle.  Again, he addressed himself to Dick,
+disregarding completely the aloof manner of the young man.
+
+"Where's your father?"  he questioned roughly.
+
+"In bed, naturally," was the answer.  "I ask you again: What are
+you doing here at this time of night?" 
+
+Burke shook his shoulders ponderously in a movement of impatience
+over this prolonging of the farce.
+
+"Oh, call your father," he directed disgustedly.
+
+Dick remonstrated with an excellent show of dignity.
+
+"It's late," he objected.  "I'd rather not disturb him, if you
+don't mind.  Really, the idea is absurd, you know."  Suddenly, he
+smiled very winningly, and spoke with a good assumption of
+ingenuousness.
+
+"Inspector," he said briskly, "I see, I'll have to tell you the
+truth.  It's this: I've persuaded my wife to go away with me. 
+She's going to give all that other sort of thing up.  Yes, we're
+going away together."  There was genuine triumph in his voice
+now.  "So, you see, we've got to talk it over.  Now, then,
+Inspector, if you'll come back in the morning----"
+
+The official grinned sardonically.  He could not in the least
+guess just what had in very deed happened, but he was far too
+clever a man to be bamboozled by Dick's maunderings.
+
+"Oh, that's it!" he exclaimed, with obvious incredulity.
+
+"Of course," Dick replied bravely, though he knew that the
+Inspector disbelieved his pretenses.  Still, for his own part, he
+was inclined as yet to be angry rather than alarmed by this
+failure to impress the officer.  "You see, I didn't know----"
+
+And even in the moment of his saying, the white beam of the
+flashing searchlight from the Tower fell between the undrawn
+draperies of the octagonal window.  The light startled the
+Inspector again, as it had done once before that same night.  His
+gaze followed it instinctively. So, within the second, he saw the
+still form lying there on the floor--lying where had been
+shadows, where now, for the passing of an instant, was brilliant
+radiance.
+
+There was no mistaking that awful, motionless, crumpled posture. 
+The Inspector knew in this single instant of view that murder had
+been done here.  Even as the beam of light from the Tower shifted
+and vanished from the room, he leaped to the switch by the door,
+and turned on the lights of the chandelier.  In the next moment,
+he had reached the door of the passage across the room, and his
+whistle sounded shrill. His voice bellowed reinforcement to the
+blast.
+
+"Cassidy! Cassidy!" 
+
+As Dick made a step toward his wife, from whom he had withdrawn a
+little in his colloquy with the official, Burke voiced his
+command viciously:
+
+"Stay where you are--both of you!" 
+
+Cassidy came rushing in, with the other detectives. He was
+plainly surprised to find the room so nearly empty, where he had
+expected to behold a gang of robbers.
+
+"Why, what's it all mean, Chief?"  he questioned. His peering
+eyes fell on Dick, standing beside Mary, and they rounded in
+amazement.
+
+"They've got Griggs!" Burke answered.  There was exceeding rage
+in his voice, as he spoke from his kneeling posture beside the
+body, to which he had hurried after the summons to his aides.  He
+glowered up into the bewildered face of the detective.  "I'll
+break you for this, Cassidy," he declared fiercely.  "Why didn't
+you get here on the run when you heard the shot?" 
+
+"But there wasn't any shot," the perplexed and alarmed detective
+expostulated.  He fairly stuttered in the earnestness of his
+self-defense.  "I tell you, Chief, there hasn't been a sound."
+
+Burke rose to his feet.  His heavy face was set in its sternest
+mold.
+
+"You could drive a hearse through the hole they've made in him,"
+he rumbled.  He wheeled on Mary and Dick.  "So!" he shouted, "now
+it's murder!... Well, hand it over.  Where's the gun?" 
+
+Followed a moment's pause.  Then the Inspector spoke harshly to
+Cassidy.  He still felt himself somewhat dazed by this
+extraordinary event, but he was able to cope with the situation. 
+He nodded toward Dick as he gave his order: "Search him!" 
+
+Before the detective could obey the direction, Dick took the
+revolver from his pocket where he had bestowed it, and held it
+out.
+
+And it so chanced that at this incriminating crisis for the son,
+the father hastily strode within the library.  He had been
+aroused by the Inspector's shouting, and was evidently greatly
+perturbed.  His usual dignified air was marred by a patent alarm.
+
+"What's all this?"  he exclaimed, as he halted and stared
+doubtfully on the scene before him.
+
+Burke, in a moment like this, was no respecter of persons, for
+all his judicious attentions on other occasions to those whose
+influence might serve him well for benefits received.
+
+"You can see for yourself," he said grimly to the dumfounded
+magnate.  Then, he fixed sinister eyes on the son.  "So," he went
+on, with somber menace in his voice, "you did it, young man."  He
+nodded toward the detective.  "Well, Cassidy, you can take 'em
+both down-town.... That's all."
+
+The command aroused Dick to remonstrance against such indignity
+toward the woman whom he loved.
+
+"Not her!" he cried, imploringly.  "You don't want her,
+Inspector! This is all wrong!" 
+
+Now, at last, Mary interposed with a new spirit.  She had
+regained, in some measure at least, her poise.  She was speaking
+again with that mental clarity which was distinctive in her.
+
+"Dick," she advised quietly, but with underlying urgency in her
+gently spoken words, "don't talk, please."
+
+Burke laughed harshly.
+
+"What do you expect?"  he inquired truculently.  "As a matter of
+fact, the thing's simple enough, young man. Either you killed
+Griggs, or she did."
+
+The Inspector, with his charge, made a careless gesture toward
+the corpse of the murdered stool-pigeon. For the first time,
+Edward Gilder, as his glance unconsciously followed the officer's
+movement, looked and saw the ghastly inanimate heap of flesh and
+bone that had once been a man.  He fairly reeled at the gruesome
+spectacle, then fumbled with an outstretched hand as he moved
+stumblingly until he laid hold on a chair, into which he sank
+helplessly.  It suddenly smote upon his consciousness that he
+felt very old and broken.  He marveled dully over the
+sensation--it was wholly new to him.  Then, soon, from a long way
+off, he heard the strident voice of the Inspector remorselessly
+continuing in the vile, the impossible accusation.... And that
+grotesque accusation was hurled against his only son--the boy
+whom he so loved.  The thing was monstrous, a thing incredible. 
+This whole seeming was no more than a chimera of the night, a
+phantom of bad dreams, with no truth under it.... Yet, the stern
+voice of the official came with a strange semblance of reality.
+
+"Either you killed him," the voice repeated gratingly, "or she
+did.  Well, then, young man, did she kill him?" 
+
+"Good God, no!" Dick shouted, aghast.
+
+"Then, it was you!" Such was the Inspector's summary of the case.
+
+Mary's words came frantically.  Once again, she was become
+desperate over the course of events in this night of fearful
+happenings.
+
+"No, no! He didn't!" 
+
+Burke's rasping voice reiterated the accusation with a certain
+complacency in the inevitability of the dilemma.
+
+"One of you killed Griggs.  Which one of you did it?"  He scowled
+at Dick.  "Did she kill him?" 
+
+Again, the husband's cry came with the fierceness of despair over
+the fate of the woman.
+
+"I told you, no!" 
+
+The Inspector, always savagely impressive now in voice and look
+and gesture, faced the girl with saturnine persistence.
+
+"Well, then," he blustered, "did he kill him?" 
+
+The nod of his head was toward Dick.  Then, as she remained
+silent: "I'm talking to you!" he snapped. "Did he kill him?" 
+
+The reply came with a soft distinctness that was like a crash of
+destiny.
+
+"Yes."
+
+Dick turned to his wife in reproachful amazement.
+
+"Mary!" he cried, incredulously.  This betrayal was something
+inconceivable from her, since he believed that now at last he
+knew her heart.
+
+Burke, however, as usual, paid no heed to the niceties of
+sentiment.  They had small place in his concerns as an official
+of police.  His sole ambition just now was to fix the crime
+definitely on the perpetrator.
+
+"You'll swear he killed him?"  he asked, briskly, well content
+with this concrete result of the entanglement.
+
+Mary subtly evaded the question, while seeming to give
+unqualified assent.
+
+"Why not?"  she responded listlessly.
+
+At this intolerable assertion as he deemed it, Edward Gilder was
+reanimated.  He sat rigidly erect in his, chair.  In that
+frightful moment, it came to him anew that here was in verity the
+last detail in a consummate scheme by this woman for revenge
+against himself.
+
+"God!" he cried, despairingly.  "And that's your vengeance!" 
+
+Mary heard, and understood.  There came an inscrutable smile on
+her curving lips, but there was no satisfaction in that smile, as
+of one who realized the fruition of long-cherished schemes of
+retribution.  Instead, there was only an infinite sadness, while
+she spoke very gently.
+
+"I don't want vengeance--now!" she said.
+
+"But they'll try my boy for murder," the magnate remonstrated,
+distraught.
+
+"Oh, no, they can't!" came the rejoinder.  And now, once again,
+there was a hint of the quizzical creeping in the smile.  "No,
+they can't!" she repeated firmly, and there was profound relief
+in her tones since at last her ingenuity had found a way out of
+this outrageous situation thrust on her and on her husband.
+
+Burke glared at the speaker in a rage that was abruptly grown
+suspicious in some vague way.
+
+"What's the reason we can't?"  he stormed.
+
+Mary sprang to her feet.  She was radiant with a new serenity,
+now that her quick-wittedness had discovered a method for
+baffling the mesh of evidence that had been woven about her and
+Dick through no fault of their own.  Her eyes were glowing with
+even more than their usual lusters.  Her voice came softly
+modulated, almost mocking.
+
+"Because you couldn't convict him," she said succinctly. A
+contented smile bent the red graces of her lips.
+
+Burke sneered an indignation that was, nevertheless, somewhat
+fearful of what might lie behind the woman's assurance.
+
+"What's the reason?"  he demanded, scornfully. "There's the
+body."  He pointed to the rigid form of the dead man, lying there
+so very near them.  "And the gun was found on him.  And then,
+you're willing to swear that he killed him.... Well, I guess
+we'll convict him, all right.  Why not?" 
+
+Mary's answer was given quietly, but, none the less, with an
+assurance that could not be gainsaid.
+
+"Because," she said, "my husband merely killed a burglar."  In
+her turn, she pointed toward the body of the dead man.  "That
+man," she continued evenly, "was the burglar.  You know that! My
+husband shot him in defense of his home!" There was a brief
+silence. Then, she added, with a wonderful mildness in the music
+of her voice.  "And so, Inspector, as you know of course, he was
+within the law!" 
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX. WHO SHOT GRIGGS?  
+
+In his office next morning, Inspector Burke was fuming over the
+failure of his conspiracy.  He had hoped through this plot to
+vindicate his authority, so sadly flaunted by Garson and Mary
+Turner.  Instead of this much-to-be-desired result from his
+scheming, the outcome had been nothing less than disastrous.  The
+one certain fact was that his most valuable ally in his warfare
+against the criminals of the city had been done to death.  Some
+one had murdered Griggs, the stool-pigeon.  Where Burke had meant
+to serve a man of high influence, Edward Gilder, by railroading
+the bride of the magnate's son to prison, he had succeeded only
+in making the trouble of that merchant prince vastly worse in the
+ending of the affair by arresting the son for the capital crime
+of murder.  The situation was, in very truth, intolerable.  More
+than ever, Burke grew hot with intent to overcome the woman who
+had so persistently outraged his authority by her ingenious
+devices against the law.  Anyhow, the murder of Griggs could not
+go unpunished.  The slayer's identity must be determined, and
+thereafter the due penalty of the law inflicted, whoever the
+guilty person might prove to be.  To the discovery of this
+identity, the Inspector was at the present moment devoting
+himself by adroit questioning of Dacey and Chicago Red, who had
+been arrested in one of their accustomed haunts by his men a
+short time before.
+
+The policeman on duty at the door was the only other person in
+the room, and in consequence Burke permitted himself, quite
+unashamed, to employ those methods of persuasion which have risen
+to a high degree of admiration in police circles.
+
+"Come across now!" he admonished.  His voice rolled forth like
+that of a bull of Bashan.  He was on his feet, facing the two
+thieves.  His head was thrust forward menacingly, and his eyes
+were savage.  The two men shrank before him--both in natural
+fear, and, too, in a furtive policy of their own.  This was no
+occasion for them to assert a personal pride against the man who
+had them in his toils.
+
+"I don't know nothin'!" Chicago Red's voice was between a snarl
+and a whine.  "Ain't I been telling you that for over an hour?" 
+
+Burke vouchsafed no answer in speech, but with a nimbleness
+surprising in one of his bulk, gave Dacey, who chanced to be the
+nearer of the two, a shove that sent the fellow staggering
+half-way across the room under its impetus.
+
+With this by way of appreciable introduction to his seriousness
+of purpose, Burke put a question:
+
+"Dacey, how long have you been out?" 
+
+The answer came in a sibilant whisper of dread.
+
+"A week."
+
+Burke pushed the implication brutally.
+
+"Want to go back for another stretch?"  The Inspector's voice was
+freighted with suggestions of disasters to come, which were well
+understood by the cringing wretch before him.
+
+The thief shuddered, and his face, already pallid from the prison
+lack of sunlight like some noxious growth of a cellar, became
+livid.  His words came in a muffled moan of fear.
+
+"God, no!" 
+
+Burke left a little interval of silence then in which the thieves
+might tremble over the prospect suggested by his words, but
+always he maintained his steady, relentless glare on the cowed
+creatures.  It was a familiar warfare with him.  Yet, in this
+instance, he was destined to failure, for the men were of a type
+different from that of English Eddie, who was lying dead as the
+meet reward for treachery to his fellows.... When, at last, his
+question issued from the close-shut lips, it came like the crack
+of a gun.
+
+"Who shot Griggs?" 
+
+The reply was a chorus from the two:
+
+"I don't know--honest, I don't!" 
+
+In his eagerness, Chicago Red moved toward his
+questioner--unwisely.
+
+"Honest to Gawd, I don't know nothin' about it!" 
+
+The Inspector's fist shot out toward Chicago Red's jaw.  The
+impact was enough.  The thief went to his knees under the blow.
+
+"Now, get up--and talk!" Burke's voice came with unrepentant
+noisiness against the stricken man.
+
+Cringingly, Chicago Red, who so gloried in his strength, yet was
+now altogether humble in this precarious case, obeyed as far as
+the getting to his feet was concerned.... It never occurred to
+him even that he should carry his obedience to the point of
+"squealing on a pal!" Had the circumstances been different, he
+might have refused to accept the Inspector's blow with such
+meekness, since above all things he loved a bit of bodily strife
+with some one near his own strength, and the Inspector was of a
+sort to offer him a battle worth while.
+
+So, now, while he got slowly to his feet, he took care to keep at
+a respectful distance from the official, though his big hands
+fairly ached to double into fists for blows with this man who had
+so maltreated him.
+
+His own self-respect, of its peculiar sort, was saved by the
+interference of Cassidy, who entered the Inspector's office to
+announce the arrival of the District Attorney.
+
+"Send 'im in," Burke directed at once.  He made a gesture toward
+the doorman, and added: "Take 'em back!" 
+
+A grin of evil humor writhed the lips of the police official, and
+he added to the attentive doorman a word of direction that might
+well be interpreted by the malevolent expression on his face.
+
+"Don't be rough with 'em, Dan," he said.  For once, his
+dominating voice was reduced to something approaching softness,
+in his sardonic appreciation of his own humor in the conception
+of what these two men, who had ventured to resist his
+importunities, might receive at the hands of his faithful
+satellites.... The doorman grinned appreciatively, and herded his
+victims from the place.  And the two went shamblingly in sure
+knowledge of the things that were in store.  Yet, without thought
+of treachery.  They would not "squeal"! All they would tell of
+the death of Eddie Griggs would be: "He got what was coming to
+him!" 
+
+The Inspector dropped into his swivel chair at the desk whilst he
+awaited the arrival of Demarest, the District Attorney.  The
+greetings between the two were cordial when at last the public
+prosecutor made his appearance.
+
+"I came as soon as I got your message," the District Attorney
+said, as he seated himself in a chair by the desk.  "And I've
+sent word to Mr. Gilder.... Now, then, Burke, let's have this
+thing quickly."
+
+The Inspector's explanation was concise:
+
+"Joe Garson, Chicago Red, and Dacey, along with Griggs, broke
+into Edward Gilder's house, last night! I knew the trick was
+going to be pulled off, and so I planted Cassidy and a couple of
+other men just outside the room where the haul was to be made. 
+Then, I went away, and after something like half an hour I came
+back to make the arrests myself."  A look of intense disgust
+spread itself over the Inspector's massive face.  "Well," he
+concluded sheepishly, "when I broke into the room I found young
+Gilder along with that Turner woman he married, and they were
+just talking together."
+
+"No trace of the others?"  Demarest questioned crisply.
+
+At the inquiry, Burke's face crimsoned angrily, then again set in
+grim lines.
+
+"I found Griggs lying on the floor--dead!" Once again the disgust
+showed in his expression.  "The Turner woman says young Gilder
+shot Griggs because he broke into the house.  Ain't that the
+limit?" 
+
+"What does the boy say?"  the District Attorney demanded.
+
+Burke shook his head dispiritedly.
+
+"Nothing," he answered.  "She told him not to talk, and so, of
+course, he won't, he's such a fool over her."
+
+"And what does she say?"  Demarest asked.  He found himself
+rather amused by the exceeding chagrin of the Inspector over this
+affair.
+
+Burke's voice grew savage as he snapped a reply.
+
+"Refuses to talk till she sees a lawyer.  But a touch of
+cheerfulness appeared in his tones as he proceeded. "We've got
+Chicago Red and Dacey, and we'll have Garson before the day's
+over.  And, oh, yes, they've picked up a young girl at the Turner
+woman's place. And we've got one real clue--for once!" The
+speaker's expression was suddenly triumphant.  He opened a drawer
+of the desk, and took out Garson's pistol, to which the silencer
+was still attached.
+
+"You never saw a gun like that before, eh?"  he exclaimed.
+
+Demarest admitted the fact after a curious examination.
+
+"I'll bet you never did!" Burke cried, with satisfaction. "That
+thing on the end is a Maxim silencer. There are thousands of them
+in use on rifles, but they've never been able to use them on
+revolvers before.  This is a specially made gun," he went on
+admiringly, as he took it back and slipped it into a pocket of
+his coat. "That thing is absolutely noiseless.  I've tried it. 
+Well, you see, it'll be an easy thing--easiest thing in the
+world!--to trace that silencer attachment.  Cassidy's working on
+that end of the thing now."
+
+For a few minutes longer, the two men discussed the details of
+the crime, theorizing over the baffling event. Then, presently,
+Cassidy entered the office, and made report of his investigations
+concerning the pistol with the silencer attachment.
+
+"I got the factory at Hartford on the wire," he explained, "and
+they gave me Mr. Maxim himself, the inventor of the silencer.  He
+said this was surely a special gun, which was made for the use of
+Henry Sylvester, one of the professors at Yale.  He wanted it for
+demonstration purposes.  Mr. Maxim said the things have never
+been put on the market, and that they never will be."
+
+"For humane reasons," Demarest commented, nodding approbation.
+
+"Good thing, too!" Burke conceded.  "They'd make murder too
+devilish easy, and it's easy enough now.... Well, Cassidy?" 
+
+"I got hold of this man, Sylvester," Cassidy went on. "I had him
+on the 'phone, too.  He says that his house was robbed about
+eight weeks ago, and among other things the silencer was stolen." 
+Cassidy paused, and chuckled drily.  "He adds the startling
+information that the New Haven police have not been able to
+recover any of the stolen property.  Them rube cops are immense!"
+
+
+Demarest smiled slyly, as the detective, at a nod from his
+superior, went toward the door.
+
+"No," he said, maliciously; "only the New York police recover
+stolen goods."
+
+"Good-night!" quoth Cassidy, turning at the door, in admission of
+his discomfiture over the thrust, while Burke himself grinned
+wryly in appreciation of the gibe.
+
+Demarest grew grave again, as he put the question that was
+troubling him most.
+
+"Is there any chance that young Gilder did shoot Griggs?" 
+
+"You can search me!" the Inspector answered, disconsolately. "My
+men were just outside the door of the room where Eddie Griggs was
+shot to death, and none of 'em heard a sound.  It's that infernal
+silencer thing. Of course, I know that all the gang was in the
+house."
+
+"But tell me just how you know that fact," Demarest objected very
+crisply.  "Did you see them go in?" 
+
+"No, I didn't," the Inspector admitted, tartly.  "But Griggs----"
+
+Demarest permitted himself a sneer born of legal knowledge.
+
+"Griggs is dead, Burke.  You're up against it.  You can't prove
+that Garson, or Chicago Red, or Dacey, ever entered that house."
+
+The Inspector scowled over this positive statement.
+
+"But Griggs said they were going to," he argued.
+
+"I know," Demarest agreed, with an exasperating air of
+shrewdness; "but Griggs is dead.  You see, Burke, you couldn't in
+a trial even repeat what he told you. It's not permissible
+evidence."
+
+"Oh, the law!" the Inspector snorted, with much choler.  "Well,
+then," he went on belligerently, "I'll charge young Gilder with
+murder, and call the Turner woman as a witness."
+
+The District Attorney laughed aloud over this project.
+
+"You can't question her on the witness-stand," he explained
+patronizingly to the badgered police official. "The law doesn't
+allow you to make a wife testify against her husband.  And,
+what's more, you can't arrest her, and then force her to go into
+the witness-stand, either.  No, Burke," he concluded
+emphatically, "your only chance of getting the murderer of Griggs
+is by a confession."
+
+"Then, I'll charge them both with the murder," the Inspector
+growled vindictively.  "And, by God, they'll both go to trial
+unless somebody comes through."  He brought his huge fist down on
+the desk with violence, and his voice was forbidding.  "If it's
+my last act on earth," he declared, "I'm going to get the man who
+shot Eddie Griggs."
+
+Demarest was seriously disturbed by the situation that had
+developed.  He was under great personal obligations to Edward
+Gilder, whose influence in fact had been the prime cause of his
+success in attaining to the important official position he now
+held, and he would have gone far to serve the magnate in any
+difficulty that might arise.  He had been perfectly willing to
+employ all the resources of his office to relieve the son from
+the entanglement with a woman of unsavory notoriety. Now, thanks
+to the miscarried plotting of Burke to the like end, what before
+had been merely a vicious state of affairs was become one of the
+utmost dreadfulness. The worst of crimes had been committed in
+the house of Edward Gilder himself, and his son acknowledged
+himself as the murderer.  The District Attorney felt a genuine
+sorrow in thinking of the anguish this event must have brought on
+the father.  He had, as well, sympathy enough for the son.  His
+acquaintance with the young man convinced him that the boy had
+not done the deed of bloody violence.  In that fact was a
+mingling of comfort and of anxiety.  It had been better,
+doubtless, if indeed Dick had shot Griggs, had indicted a just
+penalty on a housebreaker.  But the District Attorney was not
+inclined to credit the confession.  Burke's account of the plot
+in which the stool-pigeon had been the agent offered too many
+complications.  Altogether, the aspect of the case served to
+indicate that Dick could not have been the slayer.... Demarest
+shook his head dejectedly.
+
+"Burke," he said, "I want the boy to go free.  I don't believe
+for a minute that Dick Gilder ever killed this pet stool-pigeon
+of yours.  And, so, you must understand this: I want him to go
+free, of course."
+
+Burke frowned refusal at this suggestion.  Here was a matter in
+which his rights must not be invaded.  He, too, would have gone
+far to serve a man of Edward Gilder's standing, but in this
+instance his professional pride was in revolt.  He had been
+defied, trapped, made a victim of the gang who had killed his
+most valued informer.
+
+"The youngster'll go free when he tells what he knows," he said
+angrily, "and not a minute before."  His expression lightened a
+little.  "Perhaps the old gentleman can make him talk.  I can't. 
+He's under that woman's thumb, of course, and she's told him he
+mustn't say a word.  So, he don't."  A grin of half-embarrassed
+appreciation moved the heavy jaws as he glanced at the District
+Attorney.  "You see," he explained, "I can't make him talk, but I
+might if circumstances were different.  On account of his being
+the old man's son, I'm a little cramped in my style."
+
+It was, in truth, one thing to browbeat and assault a convict
+like Dacey or Chicago Red, but quite another to employ the like
+violence against a youth of Dick Gilder's position in the world. 
+Demarest understood perfectly, but he was inclined to be
+sceptical over the Inspector's theory that Dick possessed actual
+cognizance as to the killing of Griggs.
+
+"You think that young Gilder really knows?"  he questioned,
+doubtfully.
+
+"I don't think anything--yet!" Burke retorted.  "All I know is
+this: Eddie Griggs, the most valuable crook that ever worked for
+me, has been murdered."  The official's voice was charged with
+threatening as he went on.  "And some one, man or woman, is going
+to pay for it!" 
+
+"Woman?"  Demarest repeated, in some astonishment.
+
+Burke's voice came merciless.
+
+"I mean, Mary Turner," he said slowly.
+
+Demarest was shocked.
+
+"But, Burke," he expostulated, "she's not that sort."  The
+Inspector sneered openly.
+
+"How do you know she ain't?"  he demanded.  "Well, anyhow, she's
+made a monkey out of the Police Department, and, first, last, and
+all the time, I'm a copper.  .  . And that reminds me," he went
+on with a resumption of his usual curt bluntness, "I want you to
+wait for Mr. Gilder outside, while I get busy with the girl
+they've brought down from Mary Turner's flat."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI. AGGIE AT BAY. 
+
+Burke, after the lawyer had left him, watched the door
+expectantly for the coming of the girl, whom he had ordered
+brought before him.  But, when at last Dan appeared, and stood
+aside to permit her passing into the office, the Inspector gasped
+at the unexpectedness of the vision.  He had anticipated the
+coming of a woman of that world with which he was most familiar
+in the exercise of his professional duties--the underworld of
+criminals, some one beautiful perhaps, but with the brand of
+viciousness marked subtly, yet visibly for the trained eye to
+see.  Then, even in that first moment, he told himself that he
+should have been prepared for the unusual in this instance, since
+the girl had to do with Mary Turner, and that disturbing person
+herself showed in face and form and manner nothing to suggest
+aught but a gentlewoman.  And, in the next instant, the Inspector
+forgot his surprise in a sincere, almost ardent admiration.
+
+The girl was rather short, but of a slender elegance of form that
+was ravishing.  She was gowned, too, with a chic nicety to arouse
+the envy of all less-fortunate women.  Her costume had about it
+an indubitable air, a finality of perfection in its kind.  On
+another, it might have appeared perhaps the merest trifle garish.
+But that fault, if in fact it ever existed, was made into a
+virtue by the correcting innocence of the girl's face.  It was a
+childish face, childish in the exquisite smoothness of the soft,
+pink skin, childish in the wondering stare of the blue eyes, now
+so widely opened in dismay, childish in the wistful drooping of
+the rosebud mouth.
+
+The girl advanced slowly, with a laggard hesitation in her
+movements obviously from fear.  She approached the desk, from
+behind which the Inspector watched, fascinated by the fresh and
+wholesome beauty of this young creature.  He failed to observe
+the underlying anger beneath the girl's outward display of alarm. 
+He shook off his first impression by means of a resort to his
+customary bluster in such cases.
+
+"Now, then, my girl," he said roughly, "I want to know----"
+
+There came a change, wrought in the twinkling of an eye.  The
+tiny, trimly shod foot of the girl rose and fell in a wrathful
+stamp.
+
+"How dare you!" The clear blue eyes were become darkened with
+anger.  There was a deepened leaf of red in either cheek.  The
+drooping lips drooped no longer, but were bent to a haughtiness
+that was finely impressive.
+
+Before the offended indignation of the young woman, Burke sat
+bewildered by embarrassment for once in his life, and quite at a
+loss.
+
+"What's that?"  he said, dubiously.
+
+The girl explained the matter explicitly enough.
+
+"What do you mean by this outrage?"  she stormed. Her voice was
+low and rich, with a charming roundness that seemed the very
+hallmark of gentility.  But, now, it was surcharged with an
+indignant amazement over the indignity put upon her by the
+representatives of the law. Then, abruptly, the blue eyes were
+softened in their fires, as by the sudden nearness of tears.
+
+"What do you mean?"  the girl repeated.  Her slim form was tense
+with wrath.  "I demand my instant release."  There was
+indescribable rebuke in her slow emphasis of the words.
+
+Burke was impressed in spite of himself, in spite of his
+accustomed cold indifference to the feelings of others as
+necessity compelled him to make investigation of them.  His
+harsh, blustering voice softened perceptibly, and he spoke in a
+wheedling tone, such as one might employ in the effort to
+tranquillize a spoiled child in a fit of temper.
+
+"Wait a minute," he remonstrated.  "Wait a minute!" He made a
+pacifically courteous gesture toward one of the chairs, which
+stood by an end of the desk. "Sit down," he invited, with an
+effort toward cajoling.
+
+The scorn of the girl was superb.  Her voice came icily, as she
+answered:
+
+"I shall do nothing of the sort.  Sit down, indeed!--here! Why, I
+have been arrested----" There came a break in the music of her
+tones throbbing resentment. A little sob crept in, and broke the
+sequence of words. The dainty face was vivid with shame.  "I--"
+she faltered, "I've been arrested--by a common policeman!" 
+
+The Inspector seized on the one flaw left him for defense against
+her indictment.
+
+"No, no, miss," he argued, earnestly.  "Excuse me. It wasn't any
+common policeman--it was a detective sergeant."
+
+But his effort to placate was quite in vain.  The ingenuous
+little beauty with the child's face and the blue eyes so widely
+opened fairly panted in her revolt against the ignominy of her
+position, and was not to be so easily appeased.  Her voice came
+vibrant with disdain.  Her level gaze on the Inspector was of a
+sort to suggest to him anxieties over possible complications
+here.
+
+"You wait!" she cried violently.  "You just wait, I tell you,
+until my papa hears of this!" 
+
+Burke regarded the furious girl doubtfully.
+
+"Who is your papa?"  he asked, with a bit of alarm stirring in
+his breast, for he had no mind to offend any one of importance
+where there was no need.
+
+"I sha'n't tell you," came the petulant retort from the girl. 
+Her ivory forehead was wrinkled charmingly in a little frown of
+obstinacy.  "Why," she went on, displaying new symptoms of
+distress over another appalling idea that flashed on her in this
+moment, "you would probably give my name to the reporters."  Once
+again the rosebud mouth drooped into curves of sorrow, of a great
+self-pity.  "If it ever got into the newspapers, my family would
+die of shame!" 
+
+The pathos of her fear pierced through the hardened crust of the
+police official.  He spoke apologetically.
+
+"Now, the easiest way out for both of us," he suggested, "is for
+you to tell me just who you are.  You see, young lady, you were
+found in the house of a notorious crook."
+
+The haughtiness of the girl waxed.  It seemed as if she grew an
+inch taller in her scorn of the Inspector's saying.
+
+"How perfectly absurd!" she exclaimed, scathingly. "I was calling
+on Miss Mary Turner!" 
+
+"How did you come to meet her, anyhow?"  Burke inquired.  He
+still held his big voice to a softer modulation than that to
+which it was habituated.
+
+Yet, the disdain of the girl seemed only to increase momently. 
+She showed plainly that she regarded this brass-buttoned official
+as one unbearably insolent in his demeanor toward her. 
+Nevertheless, she condescended to reply, with an exaggeration of
+the aristocratic drawl to indicate her displeasure.
+
+"I was introduced to Miss Turner," she explained, "by Mr. Richard
+Gilder.  Perhaps you have heard of his father, the owner of the
+Emporium."
+
+"Oh, yes, I've heard of his father, and of him, too," Burke
+admitted, placatingly.
+
+But the girl relaxed not a whit in her attitude of offense.
+
+"Then," she went on severely, "you must see at once that you are
+entirely mistaken in this matter."  Her blue eyes widened further
+as she stared accusingly at the Inspector, who betrayed evidences
+of perplexity, and hesitated for an answer.  Then, the doll-like,
+charming face took on a softer look, which had in it a suggestion
+of appeal.
+
+"Don't you see it?"  she demanded.
+
+"Well, no," Burke rejoined uneasily; "not exactly, I don't!" In
+the presence of this delicate and graceful femininity, he
+experienced a sudden, novel distaste for his usual sledge-hammer
+methods of attack in interrogation. Yet, his duty required that
+he should continue his questioning.  He found himself in fact
+between the devil and the deep sea--though this particular devil
+appeared rather as an angel of light.
+
+Now, at his somewhat feeble remark in reply to her query, the
+childish face grew as hard as its curving contours would permit.
+
+"Sir!" she cried indignantly.  Her little head was thrown back in
+scornful reproof, and she turned a shoulder toward the official
+contemptuously.
+
+"Now, now!" Burke exclaimed in remonstrance. After all, he could
+not be brutal with this guileless maiden.  He must, however, make
+the situation clear to her, lest she think him a beast--which
+would never do!
+
+"You see, young lady," he went on with a gentleness of voice and
+manner that would have been inconceivable to Dacey and Chicago
+Red; "you see, the fact is that, even if you were introduced to
+this Mary Turner by young Mr. Gilder, this same Mary Turner
+herself is an ex-convict, and she's just been arrested for
+murder."
+
+At the dread word, a startling change was wrought in the girl. 
+She wheeled to face the Inspector, her slender body swaying a
+little toward him.  The rather heavy brows were lifted slightly
+in a disbelieving stare.  The red lips were parted, rounded to a
+tremulous horror.
+
+"Murder!" she gasped; and then was silent.
+
+"Yes," Burke went on, wholly at ease now, since he had broken the
+ice thus effectually.  "You see, if there's a mistake about you,
+you don't want it to go any further --not a mite further, that's
+sure.  So, you see, now, that's one of the reasons why I must
+know just who you are."  Then, in his turn, Burke put the query
+that the girl had put to him a little while before.  "You see
+that, don't you?" 
+
+"Oh, yes, yes!" was the instant agreement.  "You should have told
+me all about this horrid thing in the first place."  Now, the
+girl's manner was transformed. She smiled wistfully on the
+Inspector, and the glance of the blue eyes was very kind, subtly
+alluring.  Yet in this unbending, there appeared even more
+decisively than hitherto the fine qualities in bearing of one
+delicately nurtured.  She sank down in a chair by the desk, and
+forthwith spoke with a simplicity that in itself was somehow
+peculiarly potent in its effect on the official who gave
+attentive ear.
+
+"My name is Helen Travers West," she announced.
+
+Burke started a little in his seat, and regarded the speaker with
+a new deference as he heard that name uttered.
+
+"Not the daughter of the railway president?"  he inquired.
+
+"Yes," the girl admitted.  Then, anew, she displayed a serious
+agitation over the thought of any possible publicity in this
+affair.
+
+"Oh, please, don't tell any one," she begged prettily. The blue
+eyes were very imploring, beguiling, too.  The timid smile that
+wreathed the tiny mouth was marvelously winning.  The neatly
+gloved little hands were held outstretched, clasped in
+supplication.  "Surely, sir, you see now quite plainly why it
+must never be known by any one in all the wide, wide world that I
+have ever been brought to this perfectly dreadful place--though
+you have been quite nice!" Her voice dropped to a note of musical
+prayerfulness.  The words were spoken very softly and very
+slowly, with intonations difficult for a man to deny.  "Please
+let me go home."  She plucked a minute handkerchief from her
+handbag, put it to her eyes, and began to sob quietly.
+
+The burly Inspector of Police was moved to quick sympathy. 
+Really, when all was said and done, it was a shame that one like
+her should by some freak of fate have become involved in the
+sordid, vicious things that his profession made it obligatory on
+him to investigate. There was a considerable hint of the paternal
+in his air as he made an attempt to offer consolation to the
+afflicted damsel.
+
+"That's all right, little lady," he exclaimed cheerfully. "Now,
+don't you be worried--not a little bit.  Take it from me, Miss
+West.... Just go ahead, and tell me all you know about this
+Turner woman.  Did you see her yesterday?" 
+
+The girl's sobs ceased.  After a final dab with the minute
+handkerchief, she leaned forward a little toward the Inspector,
+and proceeded to put a question to him with great eagerness.
+
+"Will you let me go home as soon as I've told you the teensy
+little I know?" 
+
+"Yes," Burke agreed promptly, with an encouraging smile.  And for
+a good measure of reassurance, he added as one might to an
+alarmed child: "No one is going to hurt you, young lady."
+
+"Well, then, you see, it was this way," began the brisk
+explanation.  "Mr. Gilder was calling on me one afternoon, and he
+said to me then that he knew a very charming young woman,
+who----"
+
+Here the speech ended abruptly, and once again the handkerchief
+was brought into play as the sobbing broke forth with increased
+violence.  Presently, the girl's voice rose in a wail.
+
+"Oh, this is dreadful--dreadful!" In the final word, the wail
+broke to a moan.
+
+Burke felt himself vaguely guilty as the cause of such suffering
+on the part of one so young, so fair, so innocent. As a culprit,
+he sought his best to afford a measure of soothing for this grief
+that had had its source in his performance of duty.
+
+"That's all right, little lady," he urged in a voice as nearly
+mellifluous as he could contrive with its mighty volume.  "That's
+all right.  I have to keep on telling you.  Nobody's going to
+hurt you--not a little bit.  Believe me! Why, nobody ever would
+want to hurt you!" 
+
+But his well-meant attempt to assuage the stricken creature's wo
+was futile.  The sobbing continued.  With it came a plaintive
+cry, many times repeated, softly, but very miserably.
+
+"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" 
+
+"Isn't there something else you can tell me about this woman?" 
+Burke inquired in desperation before the plaintive outburst.  He
+hoped to distract her from such grief over her predicament.
+
+The girl gave no least heed to the question.
+
+"Oh, I'm so frightened!" she gasped.
+
+"Tut, tut!" the Inspector chided.  "Now, I tell you there's
+nothing at all for you to be afraid of."
+
+"I'm afraid!" the girl asserted dismally.  "I'm afraid you
+will--put me--in a cell!" Her voice sank to a murmur hardly
+audible as she spoke the words so fraught with dread import to
+one of her refined sensibilities.
+
+"Pooh!" Burke returned, gallantly.  "Why, my dear young lady,
+nobody in the world could think of you and a cell at the same
+time--no, indeed!" 
+
+Instantly, the girl responded to this bald flattery.  She fairly
+radiated appreciation of the compliment, as she turned her eyes,
+dewy with tears, on the somewhat flustered Inspector.
+
+"Oh, thank you!" she exclaimed, with naive enjoyment.
+
+Forthwith, Burke set out to make the most of this favorable
+opportunity.
+
+"Are you sure you've told me all you know about this woman?"  he
+questioned.
+
+"Oh, yes! I've only seen her two or three times," came the ready
+response.  The voice changed to supplication, and again the
+clasped hands were extended beseechingly.
+
+"Oh, please, Commissioner! Won't you let me go home?" 
+
+The use of a title higher than his own flattered the Inspector,
+and he was moved to graciousness.  Besides, it was obvious that
+his police net in this instance had enmeshed only the most
+harmless of doves.  He smiled encouragingly.
+
+"Well, now, little lady," he said, almost tenderly, "if I let you
+go now, will you promise to let me know if you are able to think
+of anything else about this Turner woman?" 
+
+"I will--indeed, I will!" came the fervent assurance. There was
+something almost--quite provocative in the flash of gratitude
+that shone forth from the blue eyes of the girl in that moment of
+her superlative relief.  It moved Burke to a desire for
+rehabilitation in her estimation.
+
+"Now, you see," he went on in his heavy voice, yet very kindly,
+and with a sort of massive playfulness in his manner," no one has
+hurt you--not even a little bit, after all.  Now, you run right
+home to your mother."
+
+The girl did not need to be told twice.  On the instant, she
+sprang up joyously, and started toward the door, with a final
+ravishing smile for the pleased official at the desk.
+
+"I'll go just as fast as ever I can," the musical voice made
+assurance blithely.
+
+"Give my compliments to your father," Burke requested
+courteously.  "And tell him I'm sorry I frightened you."
+
+The girl turned at the door.... After all, too great haste might
+be indiscreet.
+
+"I will, Commissioner," she promised, with an arch smile.  "And I
+know papa will be so grateful to you for all your kindness to
+me!" 
+
+It was at this critical moment that Cassidy entered from the
+opposite side of the office.  As his eyes fell on the girl at the
+door across from him, his stolid face lighted in a grin.  And, in
+that same instant of recognition between the two, the color went
+out of the girl's face.  The little red lips snapped together in
+a line of supreme disgust against this vicissitude of fate after
+all her manoeuverings in the face of the enemy.  She stood
+motionless in wordless dismay, impotent before this disaster
+forced on her by untoward chance.
+
+"Hello, Aggie!" the detective remarked, with a smirk, while the
+Inspector stared from one to the other with rounded eyes of
+wonder, and his jaw dropped from the stark surprise of this new
+development.
+
+The girl returned deliberately to the chair she had occupied
+through the interview with the Inspector, and dropped into it
+weakly.  Her form rested there limply now, and the blue eyes
+stared disconsolately at the blank wall before her.  She realized
+that fate had decreed defeat for her in the game.  It was after a
+minute of silence in which the two men sat staring that at last
+she spoke with a savage wrath against the pit into which she had
+fallen after her arduous efforts.
+
+"Ain't that the damnedest luck!" 
+
+For a little interval still, Burke turned his glances from the
+girl to Cassidy, and then back again to the girl, who sat
+immobile with her blue eyes steadfastly fixed on the wall.  The
+police official was, in truth, totally bewildered.  Here was
+inexplicable mystery. Finally, he addressed the detective curtly.
+
+"Cassidy, do you know this woman?" 
+
+"Sure, I do!" came the placid answer.  He went on to explain with
+the direct brevity of his kind.  "She's little Aggie Lynch--con'
+woman, from Buffalo--two years for blackmail--did her time at
+Burnsing."
+
+With this succinct narrative concerning the girl who sat mute and
+motionless in the chair with her eyes fast on the wall, Cassidy
+relapsed into silence, during which he stared rather perplexedly
+at his chief, who seemed to be in the throes of unusual emotion. 
+As the detective expressed it in his own vernacular: For the
+first time in his experience, the Inspector appeared to be
+actually "rattled."
+
+For a little time, there was silence, the while Burke sat staring
+at the averted face of the girl.  His expression was that of one
+who has just undergone a soul-stirring shock.  Then, presently,
+he set his features grimly, rose from his chair, and walked to a
+position directly in the front of the girl, who still refused to
+look in his direction.
+
+"Young woman----" he began, severely.  Then, of a sudden he
+laughed.  "You picked the right business, all right, all right!"
+he said, with a certain enthusiasm. He laughed aloud until his
+eyes were only slits, and his ample paunch trembled vehemently.
+
+"Well," he went on, at last, "I certainly have to hand it to you,
+kid.  You're a beaut'!" 
+
+Aggie sniffed vehemently in rebuke of the gross partiality of
+fate in his behalf.
+
+"Just as I had him goin'!" she said bitterly, as if in
+self-communion, without shifting her gaze from the blank surface
+of the wall.
+
+Now, however, Burke was reminded once again of his official
+duties, and he turned quickly to the attentive Cassidy.
+
+"Have you got a picture of this young woman?"  he asked
+brusquely.  And when Cassidy had replied in the negative, he
+again faced the adventuress with a mocking grin--in which
+mockery, too, was a fair fragment for himself, who had been so
+thoroughly within her toils of blandishment.
+
+"I'd dearly love to have a photograph of you, Miss Helen Travers
+West," he said.
+
+The speech aroused the stolid detective to a new interest.
+
+"Helen Travers West?"  he repeated, inquiringly.
+
+"Oh, that's the name she told me," the Inspector explained,
+somewhat shamefacedly before this question from his inferior. 
+Then he chuckled, for he had sense of humor sufficient to triumph
+even over his own discomfiture in this encounter.  "And she had
+me winging, too!" he confessed.  "Yes, I admit it."  He turned to
+the girl admiringly.  "You sure are immense, little one
+--immense!" He smiled somewhat more in his official manner of
+mastery.  "And now, may I have the honor of asking you to accept
+the escort of Mr. Cassidy to our gallery."
+
+Aggie sprang to her feet and regarded the Inspector with eyes in
+which was now no innocence, such as had beguiled him so recently
+from those ingenuous orbs.
+
+"Oh, can that stuff!" she cried, crossly.  "Let's get down to
+business on the dot--and no frills on it! Keep to cases!" 
+
+"Now you're talking," Burke declared, with a new appreciation of
+the versatility of this woman--who had not been wasting her time
+hitherto, and had no wish to lose it now.
+
+"You can't do anything to us," Aggie declared, strongly.  There
+remained no trace of the shrinking violet that had been Miss
+Helen Travers West.  Now, she revealed merely the business woman
+engaged in a fight against the law, which was opposed definitely
+to her peculiar form of business.
+
+"You can't do anything to me, and you know you can't!" she went
+on, with an almost convincing tranquillity of assertion.  "Why,
+I'll be sprung inside an hour."  There came a ripple of laughter
+that reminded the Inspector of the fashion in which he had been
+overcome by this woman's wiles.  And she spoke with a certitude
+of conviction that was rather terrifying to one who had just
+fallen under the stress of her spells.
+
+"Why, habeas corpus is my lawyer's middle name!" 
+
+"On the level, now," the Inspector demanded, quite unmoved by the
+final declarations, "when did you see Mary Turner last?" 
+
+Aggie resorted anew to her practices of deception. Her voice held
+the accents of unimpeachable truth, and her eyes looked
+unflinchingly into those of her questioner as she answered.
+
+"Early this morning," she declared.  "We slept together last
+night, because I had the willies.  She blew the joint about
+half-past ten."
+
+Burke shook his head, more in sorrow than in anger.
+
+"What's the use of your lying to me?"  he remonstrated.
+
+"What, me?"  Aggie clamored, with every evidence of being deeply
+wounded by the charge against her veracity. "Oh, I wouldn't do
+anything like that--on the level! What would be the use?  I
+couldn't fool you, Commissioner."
+
+Burke stroked his chin sheepishly, under the influence of
+memories of Miss Helen Travers West.
+
+"So help me," Aggie continued with the utmost solemnity, "Mary
+never left the house all night.  I'd swear that's the truth on a
+pile of Bibles a mile high!" 
+
+"Have to be higher than that," the Inspector commented, grimly. 
+"You see, Aggie Lynch, Mary Turner was arrested just after
+midnight."  His voice deepened and came blustering.  "Young
+woman, you'd better tell all you know."
+
+"I don't know a thing!" Aggie retorted, sharply.  She faced the
+Inspector fiercely, quite unabashed by the fact that her vigorous
+offer to commit perjury had been of no avail.
+
+Burke, with a quick movement, drew the pistol from his pocket and
+extended it toward the girl.
+
+"How long has she owned this gun?"  he said, threateningly.
+
+Aggie showed no trace of emotion as her glance ran over the
+weapon.
+
+"She didn't own it," was her firm answer.
+
+"Oh, then it's Garson's!" Burke exclaimed.
+
+"I don't know whose it is," Aggie replied, with an air of boredom
+well calculated to deceive.  "I never laid eyes on it till now."
+
+The Inspector's tone abruptly took on a somber coloring, with an
+underlying menace.
+
+"English Eddie was killed with this gun last night," he said. 
+"Now, who did it?"  His broad face was sinister.  "Come on, now!
+Who did it?" 
+
+Aggie became flippant, seemingly unimpressed by the Inspector's
+savageness.
+
+"How should I know?"  she drawled.  "What do you think I am--a
+fortune-teller?" 
+
+"You'd better come through," Burke reiterated.  Then his manner
+changed to wheedling.  "If you're the wise kid I think you are,
+you will."
+
+Aggie waxed very petulant over this insistence.
+
+"I tell you, I don't know anything! Say, what are you trying to
+hand me, anyway?" 
+
+Burke scowled on the girl portentously, and shook his head.
+
+"Now, it won't do, I tell you, Aggie Lynch.  I'm wise.  You
+listen to me."  Once more his manner turned to the cajoling. 
+"You tell me what you know, and I'll see you make a clean
+get-away, and I'll slip you a nice little piece of money, too."
+
+The girl's face changed with startling swiftness.  She regarded
+the Inspector shrewdly, a crafty glint in her eyes.
+
+"Let me get this straight," she said.  "If I tell you what I know
+about Mary Turner and Joe Garson, I get away?" 
+
+"Clean!" Burke ejaculated, eagerly.
+
+"And you'll slip me some coin, too?" 
+
+"That's it!" came the hasty assurance.  "Now, what do you say?" 
+
+The small figure grew tense.  The delicate, childish face was
+suddenly distorted with rage, a rage black and venomous.  The
+blue eyes were blazing.  The voice came thin and piercing.
+
+"I say, you're a great big stiff! What do you think I am?"  she
+stormed at the discomfited Inspector, while Cassidy looked on in
+some enjoyment at beholding his superior being worsted.  Aggie
+wheeled on the detective. "Say, take me out of here," she cried
+in a voice surcharged with disgust.  "I'd rather be in the cooler
+than here with him!" 
+
+Now Burke's tone was dangerous.
+
+"You'll tell," he growled, "or you'll go up the river for a
+stretch."
+
+"I don't know anything," the girl retorted, spiritedly And, if I
+did, I wouldn't tell--not in a million years!" She thrust her
+head forward challengingly as she faced the Inspector, and her
+expression was resolute.  "Now, then," she ended, "send me up--if
+you can!" 
+
+"Take her away," Burke snapped to the detective.
+
+Aggie went toward Cassidy without any sign of reluctance.
+
+"Yes, do, please!" she exclaimed with a sneer.  "And do it in a
+hurry.  Being in the room with him makes me sick! She turned to
+stare at the Inspector with eyes that were very clear and very
+hard.  In this moment, there was nothing childish in their gaze.
+
+"Thought I'd squeal, did you?"  she said, evenly. Yes, I
+will"--the red lips bent to a smile of supreme scorn--"like
+hell!" 
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII. THE TRAP THAT FAILED. 
+
+Burke, despite his quality of heaviness, was blest with a keen
+sense of humor, against which at times his professional labors
+strove mutinously.  In the present instance, he had failed
+utterly to obtain any information of value from the girl whom he
+had just been examining. On the contrary, he had been befooled
+outrageously by a female criminal, in a manner to wound deeply
+his professional pride.  Nevertheless, he bore no grudge against
+the adventuress.  His sense of the absurd served him well, and he
+took a lively enjoyment in recalling the method by which her
+plausible wiles had beguiled him.  He gave her a real respect for
+the adroitness with which she had deceived him--and he was not
+one to be readily deceived.  So, now, as the scornful maiden went
+out of the door under the escort of Cassidy, Burke bowed
+gallantly to her lithe back, and blew a kiss from his thick
+fingertips, in mocking reverence for her as an artist in her way. 
+Then, he seated himself, pressed the desk call-button, and, when
+he had learned that Edward Gilder was arrived, ordered that the
+magnate and the District Attorney be admitted, and that the son,
+also, be sent up from his cell.
+
+"It's a bad business, sir," Burke said, with hearty sympathy, to
+the shaken father, after the formal greetings that followed the
+entrance of the two men.  "It's a very bad business."
+
+"What does he say?"  Gilder questioned.  There was something
+pitiful in the distress of this man, usually so strong and so
+certain of his course.  Now, he was hesitant in his movements,
+and his mellow voice came more weakly than its wont.  There was a
+pathetic pleading in the dulled eyes with which he regarded the
+Inspector.
+
+"Nothing!" Burke answered.  "That's why I sent for you.  I
+suppose Mr. Demarest has made the situation plain to you."
+
+Gilder nodded, his face miserable.
+
+"Yes," he has explained it to me," he said in a lifeless voice. 
+"It's a terrible position for my boy.  But you'll release him at
+once, won't you?"  Though he strove to put confidence into his
+words, his painful doubt was manifest.
+
+"I can't," Burke replied, reluctantly, but bluntly.  "You ought
+not to expect it, Mr. Gilder."
+
+"But," came the protest, delivered with much more spirit, "you
+know very well that he didn't do it!" 
+
+Burke shook his head emphatically in denial of the allegation.
+
+"I don't know anything about it--yet," he contradicted.
+
+The face of the magnate went white with fear.
+
+"Inspector," he cried brokenly, "you--don't mean--"
+
+Burke answered with entire candor.
+
+"I mean, Mr. Gilder, that you've got to make him talk.  That's
+what I want you to do, for all our sakes. Will you?" 
+
+"I'll do my best," the unhappy man replied, forlornly.
+
+A minute later, Dick, in charge of an officer, was brought into
+the room.  He was pale, a little disheveled from his hours in a
+cell.  He still wore his evening clothes of the night before. 
+His face showed clearly the deepened lines, graven by the
+suffering to which he had been subjected, but there was no
+weakness in his expression.  Instead, a new force that love and
+sorrow had brought out in his character was plainly visible.  The
+strength of his nature was springing to full life under the
+stimulus of the ordeal through which he was passing.
+
+The father went forward quickly, and caught Dick's hands in a
+mighty grip.
+
+"My boy!" he murmured, huskily.  Then, he made a great effort,
+and controlled his emotion to some extent. "The Inspector tells
+me," he went on, "that you've refused to talk--to answer his
+questions."
+
+Dick, too, winced under the pain of this meeting with his father
+in a situation so sinister.  But he was, to some degree,
+apathetic from over-much misery.  Now, in reply to his father's
+words, he only nodded a quiet assent.
+
+"That wasn't wise under the circumstances," the father
+remonstrated hurriedly.  "However, now, Demarest and I are here
+to protect your interests, so that you can talk freely."  He went
+on with a little catch of anxiety in his voice.  "Now, Dick, tell
+us! Who killed that man?  We must know.  Tell me."
+
+Burke broke in impatiently, with his blustering fashion of
+address.
+
+"Where did you get----?" 
+
+But Demarest raised a restraining hand.
+
+"Wait, please!" he admonished the Inspector.  "You wait a bit." 
+He went a step toward the young man. "Give the boy a chance," he
+said, and his voice was very friendly as he went on speaking. 
+"Dick, I don't want to frighten you, but your position is really
+a dangerous one.  Your only chance is to speak with perfect
+frankness. I pledge you my word, I'm telling the truth, Dick." 
+There was profound concern in the lawyer's thin face, and his
+voice, trained to oratorical arts, was emotionally persuasive. 
+"Dick, my boy, I want you to forget that I'm the District
+Attorney, and remember only that I'm an old friend of yours, and
+of your father's, who is trying very hard to help you.  Surely,
+you can trust me.  Now, Dick, tell me: Who shot Griggs?" 
+
+There came a long pause.  Burke's face was avid with desire for
+knowledge, with the keen expectancy of the hunter on the trail,
+which was characteristic of him in his professional work.  The
+District Attorney himself was less vitally eager, but his
+curiosity, as well as his wish to escape from an embarrassing
+situation, showed openly on his alert countenance.  The heavy
+features of the father were twisting a little in nervous spasms,
+for to him this hour was all anguish, since his only son was in
+such horrible plight.  Dick alone seemed almost tranquil, though
+the outward calm was belied by the flickering of his eyelids and
+the occasional involuntary movement of the lips.  Finally he
+spoke, in a cold, weary voice.
+
+"I shot Griggs," he said.
+
+Demarest realized subtly that his plea had failed, but he made ar
+effort to resist the impression, to take the admission at its
+face value.
+
+"Why?"  he demanded.
+
+Dick's answer came in the like unmeaning tones, and as wearily.
+
+"Because I thought he was a burglar."
+
+The District Attorney was beginning to feel his professional
+pride aroused against this young man who so flagrantly repelled
+his attempts to learn the truth concerning the crime that had
+been committed.  He resorted to familiar artifices for entangling
+one questioned.
+
+"Oh, I see!" he said, in a tone of conviction.  "Now, let's go
+back a little.  Burke says you told him last night that you had
+persuaded your wife to come over to the house, and join you
+there.  Is that right?" 
+
+"Yes."  The monosyllable was uttered indifferently.    "And,
+while the two of you were talking," Demarest continued in a
+matter-of-fact manner.  He did not conclude the sentence, but
+asked instead: "Now, tell me, Dick, just what did happen, won't
+you?" 
+
+There was no reply; and, after a little interval, the lawyer
+resumed his questioning.
+
+"Did this burglar come into the room?" 
+
+Dick nodded an assent.
+
+"And he attacked you?" 
+
+There came another nod of affirmation.
+
+"And there was a struggle?" 
+
+"Yes," Dick said, and now there was resolution in his answer.
+
+"And you shot him?"  Demarest asked, smoothly.
+
+"Yes," the young man said again.
+
+"Then," the lawyer countered on the instant, "where did you get
+the revolver?" 
+
+Dick started to answer without thought:
+
+"Why, I grabbed it----" Then, the significance of this crashed on
+his consciousness, and he checked the words trembling on his
+lips.  His eyes, which had been downcast, lifted and glared on
+the questioner.  "So," he said with swift hostility in his voice,
+"so, you're trying to trap me, too!" He shrugged his shoulders in
+a way he had learned abroad.  "You! And you talk of friendship. 
+I want none of such friendship."
+
+Demarest, greatly disconcerted, was skilled, nevertheless, in
+dissembling, and he hid his chagrin perfectly. There was only
+reproach in his voice as he answered stoutly:
+
+"I am your friend, Dick."
+
+But Burke would be no longer restrained.  He had listened with
+increasing impatience to the diplomatic efforts of the District
+Attorney, which had ended in total rout.  Now, he insisted on
+employing his own more drastic, and, as he believed, more
+efficacious, methods. He stood up, and spoke in his most
+threatening manner.
+
+"You don't want to take us for fools, young man," he said, and
+his big tones rumbled harshly through the room.  "If you shot
+Griggs in mistake for a burglar, why did you try to hide the
+fact?  Why did you pretend to me that you and your wife were
+alone in the room--when you had *THAT there with you, eh?  Why
+didn't you call for help?  Why didn't you call for the police, as
+any honest man would naturally under such circumstances?" 
+
+The arraignment was severely logical.  Dick showed his
+appreciation of the justice of it in the whitening of his face,
+nor did he try to answer the charges thus hurled at him.
+
+The father, too, appreciated the gravity of the situation. His
+face was working, as if toward tears.
+
+"We're trying to save you," he pleaded, tremulously.
+
+Burke persisted in his vehement system of attack. Now, he again
+brought out the weapon that had done Eddie Griggs to death.
+
+"Where'd you get this gun?"  he shouted.
+
+Dick held his tranquil pose.
+
+"I won't talk any more," he answered, simply.  "I must see my
+wife first."  His voice became more aggressive. "I want to know
+what you've done to her."
+
+Burke seized on this opening.
+
+"Did she kill Griggs?"  he questioned, roughly.
+
+For once, Dick was startled out of his calm.
+
+"No, no!" he cried, desperately.
+
+Burke followed up his advantage.
+
+"Then, who did?"  he demanded, sharply.  "Who did?" 
+
+Now, however, the young man had regained his self-control.  He
+answered very quietly, but with an air of finality.
+
+"I won't say any more until I've talked with a lawyer whom I can
+trust."  He shot a vindictive glance toward Demarest.
+
+The father intervened with a piteous eagerness.
+
+"Dick, if you know who killed this man, you must speak to protect
+yourself."
+
+Burke's voice came viciously.
+
+"The gun was found on you.  Don't forget that."
+
+"You don't seem to realize the position you're in," the father
+insisted, despairingly.  "Think of me, Dick, my boy.  If you
+won't speak for your own sake, do it for mine."
+
+The face of the young man softened as he met his father's
+beseeching eyes.
+
+"I'm sorry, Dad," he said, very gently.  "But I--well, I can't!" 
+
+Again, Burke interposed.  His busy brain was working out a new
+scheme for solving this irritating problem.
+
+"I'm going to give him a little more time to think things over,"
+he said, curtly.  He went back to his chair. "Perhaps he'll get
+to understand the importance of what we've been saying pretty
+soon."  He scowled at Dick. "Now, young man," he went on briskly,
+"you want to do a lot of quick thinking, and a lot of honest
+thinking, and, when you're ready to tell the truth, let me know."
+
+He pressed the button on his desk, and, as the doorman appeared,
+addressed that functionary.
+
+"Dan, have one of the men take him back.  You wait outside."
+
+Dick, however, did not move.  His voice came with a note of
+determination.
+
+"I want to know about my wife.  Where is she?" 
+
+Burke disregarded the question as completely as if it had not
+been uttered, and went on speaking to the doorman with a
+suggestion in his words that was effective.
+
+"He's not to speak to any one, you understand."  Then he
+condescended to give his attention to the prisoner. "You'll know
+all about your wife, young man, when you make up your mind to
+tell me the truth."
+
+Dick gave no heed to the Inspector's statement.  His eyes were
+fixed on his father, and there was a great tenderness in their
+depths.  And he spoke very softly:
+
+"Dad, I'm sorry!" 
+
+The father's gaze met the son's, and the eyes of the two locked. 
+There was no other word spoken.  Dick turned, and followed his
+custodian out of the office in silence.  Even after the shutting
+of the door behind the prisoner, the pause endured for some
+moments.
+
+Then, at last, Burke spoke to the magnate.
+
+"You see, Mr. Gilder, what we're up against.  I can't let him
+go--yet!" 
+
+The father strode across the room in a sudden access of rage.
+
+"He's thinking of that woman," he cried out, in a loud voice. 
+"He's trying to shield her."
+
+"He's a loyal kid, at that," Burke commented, with a grudging
+admiration.  "I'll say that much for him."  His expression grew
+morose, as again he pressed the button on his desk.  "And now,"
+he vouchsafed, "I'll show you the difference."  Then, as the
+doorman reappeared, he gave his order: "Dan, have the Turner
+woman brought up."  He regarded the two men with his bristling
+brows pulled down in a scowl.  "I'll have to try a different game
+with her," he said, thoughtfully. "She sure is one clever little
+dame.  But, if she didn't do it herself, she knows who did, all
+right."  Again, Burke's voice took on its savage note.  "And some
+one's got to pay for killing Griggs.  I don't have to explain why
+to Mr. Demarest, but to you, Mr. Gilder.  You see, it's this way:
+The very foundations of the work done by this department rest on
+the use of crooks, who are willing to betray their pals for coin. 
+I told you a bit about it last night.  Now, you understand, if
+Griggs's murder goes unpunished, it'll put the fear of God into
+the heart of every stool-pigeon we employ.  And then where'd we
+be?  Tell me that!" 
+
+The Inspector next called his stenographer, and gave explicit
+directions.  At the back of the room, behind the desk, were three
+large windows, which opened on a corridor, and across this was a
+tier of cells.  The stenographer was to take his seat in this
+corridor, just outside one of the windows.  Over the windows, the
+shades were drawn, so that he would remain invisible to any one
+within the office, while yet easily able to overhear every word
+spoken in the room.
+
+When he had completed his instructions to the stenographer, Burke
+turned to Gilder and Demarest.
+
+"Now, this time," he said energetically, "I'll be the one to do
+the talking.  And get this: Whatever you hear me say, don't you
+be surprised.  Remember, we're dealing with crooks, and, when
+you're dealing with crooks, you have to use crooked ways."
+
+There was a brief period of silence.  Then, the door opened, and
+Mary Turner entered the office.  She walked slowly forward,
+moving with the smooth strength and grace that were the proof of
+perfect health and of perfect poise, the correlation of mind and
+body in exactness. Her form, clearly revealed by the clinging
+evening dress, was a curving group of graces.  The beauty of her
+face was enhanced, rather than lessened, by the pallor of it, for
+the fading of the richer colors gave to the fine features an
+expression more spiritual, made plainer the underlying qualities
+that her accustomed brilliance might half-conceal.  She paid
+absolutely no attention to the other two in the room, but went
+straight to the desk, and there halted, gazing with her softly
+penetrant eyes of deepest violet into the face of the Inspector.
+
+Under that intent scrutiny, Burke felt a challenge, set himself
+to match craft with craft.  He was not likely to undervalue the
+wits of one who had so often flouted him, who, even now, had
+placed him in a preposterous predicament by this entanglement
+over the death of a spy.  But he was resolved to use his best
+skill to disarm her sophistication.  His large voice was
+modulated to kindliness as he spoke in a casual manner.
+
+"I just sent for you to tell you that you're free."
+
+Mary regarded the speaker with an impenetrable expression. Her
+tones as she spoke were quite as matter-of-fact as his own had
+been.  In them was no wonder, no exultation.
+
+"Then, I can go," she said, simply.
+
+"Sure, you can go," Burke replied, amiably.
+
+Without any delay, yet without any haste, Mary glanced toward
+Gilder and Demarest, who were watching the scene closely.  Her
+eyes were somehow appraising, but altogether indifferent.  Then,
+she went toward the outer door of the office, still with that
+almost lackadaisical air.
+
+Burke waited rather impatiently until she had nearly reached the
+door before he shot his bolt, with a fine assumption of
+carelessness in the announcement.
+
+"Garson has confessed!" 
+
+Mary, who readily enough had already guessed the essential
+hypocrisy of all this play, turned and confronted the Inspector,
+and answered without the least trace of fear, but with the
+firmness of knowledge:
+
+"Oh, no, he hasn't!" 
+
+Her attitude exasperated Burke.  His voice roared out wrathfully.
+
+"What's the reason he hasn't?" 
+
+The music in the tones of the answer was a vocal rebuke.
+
+"Because he didn't do it."  She stated the fact as one without a
+hint of any contradictory possibility.
+
+"Well, he says he did it!" Burke vociferated, still more loudly.
+
+Mary, in her turn, resorted to a bit of finesse, in order to
+learn whether or not Garson had been arrested. She spoke with a
+trace of indignation.
+
+"But how could he have done it, when he went----" she began.
+
+The Inspector fell a victim to her superior craft.  His question
+came eagerly.
+
+"Where did he go?" 
+
+Mary smiled for the first time since she had been in the room,
+and in that smile the Inspector realized his defeat in the first
+passage of this game of intrigue between them.
+
+"You ought to know," she said, sedately, "since you have arrested
+him, and he has confessed."
+
+Demarest put up a hand to conceal his smile over the police
+official's chagrin.  Gilder, staring always at this woman who had
+come to be his Nemesis, was marveling over the beauty and verve
+of the one so hating him as to plan the ruin of his life and his
+son's.
+
+Burke was frantic over being worsted thus.  To gain a diversion,
+he reverted to his familiar bullying tactics. His question burst
+raspingly.  It was a question that had come to be constant within
+his brain during the last few hours, one that obsessed him, that
+fretted him sorely, almost beyond endurance.
+
+"Who shot Griggs?"  he shouted.
+
+Mary rested serene in the presence of this violence. Her answer
+capped the climax of the officer's exasperation.
+
+"My husband shot a burglar," she said, languidly. And then her
+insolence reached its culmination in a query of her own: "Was his
+name Griggs?"  It was done with splendid art, with a splendid
+mastery of her own emotions, for, even as she spoke the words,
+she was remembering those shuddering seconds when she had stood,
+only a few hours ago, gazing down at the inert bulk that had been
+a man.
+
+Burke betook himself to another form of attack.
+
+"Oh, you know better than that," he declared, truculently. "You
+see, we've traced the Maxim silencer. Garson himself bought it up
+in Hartford."
+
+For the first time, Mary was caught off her guard.
+
+"But he told me----" she began, then became aware of her
+indiscretion, and checked herself.
+
+Burke seized on her lapse with avidity.
+
+"What did he tell you?"  he questioned, eagerly.
+
+Now, Mary had regained her self-command, and she spoke calmly.
+
+"He told me," she said, without a particle of hesitation, "that
+he had never seen one.  Surely, if he had had anything of the
+sort, he would have shown it to me then."
+
+"Probably he did, too!" Burke rejoined, without the least
+suspicion that his surly utterance touched the truth exactly. 
+"Now, see here," he went on, trying to make his voice affable,
+though with small success, for he was excessively irritated by
+these repeated failures; "I can make it a lot easier for you if
+you'll talk.  Come on, now! Who killed Griggs?" 
+
+Mary cast off pretense finally, and spoke malignantly.
+
+"That's for you to find out," she said, sneering.
+
+Burke pressed the button on the desk, and, when the doorman
+appeared, ordered that the prisoner be returned to her cell.
+
+But Mary stood rebellious, and spoke with a resumption of her
+cynical scorn.
+
+"I suppose," she said, with a glance of contempt toward Demarest,
+"that it's useless for me to claim my constitutional rights, and
+demand to see a lawyer?" 
+
+Burke, too, had cast off pretense at last.
+
+"Yes," he agreed, with an evil smirk, "you've guessed it right,
+the first time."
+
+Mary spoke to the District Attorney.
+
+"I believe," she said, with a new dignity of bearing, "that such
+is my constitutional right, is it not, Mr. Demarest?" 
+
+The lawyer sought no evasion of the issue.  For that matter, he
+was coming to have an increasing respect, even admiration, for
+this young woman, who endured insult and ignominy with a spirit
+so sturdy, and met strategem with other strategem better devised. 
+So, now, he made his answer with frank honesty.
+
+"It is your constitutional right, Miss Turner."
+
+Mary turned her clear eyes on the Inspector, and awaited from
+that official a reply that was not forthcoming. Truth to tell,
+Burke was far from comfortable under that survey.
+
+"Well, Inspector?"  she inquired, at last.
+
+Burke took refuge, as his wont was when too hard pressed, in a
+mighty bellow.
+
+"The Constitution don't go here!" It was the best he could do,
+and it shamed him, for he knew its weakness. Again, wrath surged
+in him, and it surged high. He welcomed the advent of Cassidy,
+who came hurrying in with a grin of satisfaction on his stolid
+face.
+
+"Say, Chief," the detective said with animation, in response to
+Burke's glance of inquiry, "we've got Garson."
+
+Mary's face fell, though the change of expression was almost
+imperceptible.  Only Demarest, a student of much experience,
+observed the fleeting display of repressed emotion.  When the
+Inspector took thought to look at her, she was as impassive as
+before.  Yet, he was minded to try another ruse in his desire to
+defeat the intelligence of this woman.  To this end, he asked
+Gilder and the District Attorney to withdraw, while he should
+have a private conversation with the prisoner. As she listened to
+his request, Mary smiled again in sphinx-like fashion, and there
+was still on her lips an expression that caused the official a
+pang of doubt, when, at last, the two were left alone together,
+and he darted a surreptitious glance toward her.  Nevertheless,
+he pressed on his device valiantly.
+
+"Now," he said, with a marked softening of manner, "I'm going to
+be your friend."
+
+"Are you?"  Mary's tone was non-committal.
+
+"Yes," Burke declared, heartily.  "And I mean it! Give up the
+truth about young Gilder.  I know he shot Griggs, of course.  But
+I'm not taking any stock in that burglar story--not a little bit!
+No court would, either. What was really back of the killing?" 
+Burke's eyes narrowed cunningly.  "Was he jealous of Griggs? 
+Well, that's what he might do then.  He's always been a worthless
+young cub.  A rotten deal like this would be about his gait, I
+guess.... Tell me, now: Why did he shoot Eddie Griggs?" 
+
+There was coarseness a-plenty in the Inspector's pretense, but it
+possessed a solitary fundamental virtue: it played on the heart
+of the woman whom he questioned, aroused it to wrath in defense
+of her mate.  In a second, all poise fled from this girl whose
+soul was blossoming in the blest realization that a man loved her
+purely, unselfishly.  Her words came stumblingly in their haste.
+Her eyes were near to black in their anger.
+
+"He didn't kill him! He didn't kill him!" she fairly hissed. 
+"Why, he's the most wonderful man in the world.  You shan't hurt
+him! Nobody shall hurt him! I'll fight to the end of my life for
+Dick Gilder!" 
+
+Burke was beaming joyously.  At last--a long last! --his finesse
+had won the victory over this woman's subtleties.
+
+"Well, that's just what I thought," he said, with smug content. 
+"And now, then, who did shoot Griggs?  We've got every one of the
+gang.  They're all crooks. See here," he went on, with a sudden
+change to the respectful in his manner, "why don't you start
+fresh?  I'll give you every chance in the world.  I'm dead on the
+level with you this time."
+
+But he was too late.  By now, Mary had herself well in hand
+again, vastly ashamed of the short period of self-betrayal caused
+by the official's artifice against her heart.  As she listened to
+the Inspector's assurances, the mocking expression of her face
+was not encouraging to that astute individual, but he persevered
+manfully. 
+
+"Just you wait," he went on cheerfully, "and I'll prove to you
+that I'm on the level about this, that I'm really your friend....
+There was a letter came for you to your apartment.  My men
+brought it down to me.  I've read it.  Here it is.  I'll read it
+to you!" 
+
+He picked up an envelope, which had been lying on the desk, and
+drew out the single sheet of paper it contained.  Mary watched
+him, wondering much more than her expression revealed over this
+new development. Then, as she listened, quick interest touched
+her features to a new life.  In her eyes leaped emotions to make
+or mar a life.
+
+This was the letter: 
+
+"I can't go without telling you how sorry I am.  There won't
+never be a time that I won't remember it was me got you sent up,
+that you did time in my place.  I ain't going to forgive myself
+ever, and I swear I'm going straight always.                      
+   "Your true friend,                               "HELEN
+MORRIS."  
+
+For once, Burke showed a certain delicacy.  When he had finished
+the reading, he said nothing for a long minute--only, sat with
+his cunning eyes on the face of the woman who was immobile there
+before him.  And, as he looked on her in her slender elegance of
+form and gentlewomanly loveliness of face, a loveliness
+intelligent and refined beyond that of most women, he felt borne
+in on his consciousness the fact that here was one to be
+respected.  He fought against the impression.  It was to him
+preposterous, for she was one of that underworld against which he
+was ruthlessly at war.  Yet, he could not altogether overcome his
+instinct toward a half-reverent admiration.... And, as the letter
+proved, she had been innocent at the outset.  She had been the
+victim of a mistaken justice, made outcast by the law she had
+never wronged.... His mood of respect was inevitable, since he
+had some sensibilities, though they were coarsened, and they
+sensed vaguely the maelstrom of emotions that now swirled in the
+girl's breast.
+
+To Mary Turner, this was the wonderful hour.  In it, the
+vindication of her innocence was made complete. The story was
+there recorded in black and white on the page written by Helen
+Morris.  It mattered little--or infinitely much!--that it came
+too late.  She had gained her evil place in the world, was a
+notorious woman in fact, was even now a prisoner under suspicion
+of murder. Nevertheless, she felt a thrill of ecstasy over this
+written document--which it had never occurred to her to wrest
+from the girl at the time of the oral confession. Now that it had
+been proffered, the value of it loomed above almost all things
+else in the world.  It proclaimed undeniably the wrong under
+which she had suffered.  She was not the thief the court had
+adjudged her.  Now, there's nobody here but just you and me. Come
+on, now--put me wise!" 
+
+Mary was again the resourceful woman who was glad to pit her
+brain against the contriving of those who fought her.  So, at
+this moment, she seemed pliant to the will of the man who urged
+her thus cunningly.  Her quick glance around the office was of a
+sort to delude the Inspector into a belief that she was yielding
+to his lure.
+
+"Are you sure no one will ever know?"  she asked, timorously.
+
+"Nobody but you and me," Burke declared, all agog with
+anticipation of victory at last.  "I give you my word!" 
+
+Mary met the gaze of the Inspector fully.  In the same instant,
+she flashed on him a smile that was dazzling, the smile of a
+woman triumphant in her mastery of the situation.  Her face was
+radiant, luminous with honest mirth.  There was something simple
+and genuine in her beauty that thrilled the man before her, the
+man trying so vindictively to trap her to her own undoing. For
+all his grossness, Burke was of shrewd perceptions, and
+somewhere, half-submerged under the sordid nature of his calling,
+was a love of things esthetic, a responsiveness to the appeals of
+beauty.  Now, as his glance searched the face of the girl who was
+bubbling with mirth, he experienced an odd warming of his heart
+under the spell of her loveliness--a loveliness wholly feminine,
+pervasive, wholesome.  But, too, his soul shook in a premonition
+of catastrophe, for there was mischief in the beaming eyes of
+softest violet.  There was a demon of mockery playing in the
+curves of the scarlet lips, as she smiled so winsomely.
+
+All his apprehensions were verified by her utterance. It came in
+a most casual voice, despite the dancing delight in her face. 
+The tones were drawled in the matter-of-fact fashion of statement
+that leads a listener to answer without heed to the exact import
+of the question, unless very alert, indeed.... This is what she
+said in that so-casual voice:
+
+"I'm not speaking loud enough, am I, stenographer?" 
+
+And that industrious writer of shorthand notes, absorbed in his
+task, answered instantly from his hidden place in the corridor.
+
+"No, ma'am, not quite."
+
+Mary laughed aloud, while Burke sat dumfounded. She rose swiftly,
+and went to the nearest window, and with a pull at the cord sent
+the shade flying upward. For seconds, there was revealed the busy
+stenographer, bent over his pad.  Then, the noise of the
+ascending shade, which had been hammering on his consciousness,
+penetrated, and he looked up.  Realization came, as he beheld the
+woman laughing at him through the window. Consternation beset
+him.  He knew that, somehow, he had bungled fatally.  A groan of
+distress burst from him, and he fled the place in ignominious
+rout.
+
+There was another whose spirit was equally desirous of
+flight--Burke! Yet once again, he was beaten at his own game, his
+cunning made of no avail against the clever interpretation of
+this woman whom he assailed. He had no defense to offer.  He did
+not care to meet her gaze just then, since he was learning to
+respect her as one wronged, where he had regarded her hitherto
+merely as of the flotsam and jetsam of the criminal class. So, he
+avoided her eyes as she stood by the window regarding him
+quizzically.  In a panic of confusion quite new to him in his
+years of experience, he pressed the button on his desk.
+
+The doorman appeared with that automatic precision which made him
+valuable in his position, and the Inspector hailed the ready
+presence with a feeling of profound relief.
+
+"Dan, take her back!" he said, feebly.
+
+Mary was smiling still as she went to the door.  But she could
+not resist the impulse toward retort.
+
+"Oh, yes," she said, suavely; "you were right on the level with
+me, weren't you, Burke?  Nobody here but you and me!" The words
+came in a sing-song of mockery.
+
+The Inspector had nothing in the way of answer--only, sat
+motionless until the door closed after her. Then, left alone, his
+sole audible comment was a single word--one he had learned,
+perhaps, from Aggie Lynch:
+
+"Hell!" 
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII. THE CONFESSION. 
+
+Burke was a persistent man, and he had set himself to getting the
+murderer of Griggs.  Foiled in his efforts thus far by the
+opposition of Mary, he now gave himself over to careful thought
+as to a means of procedure that might offer the best
+possibilities of success.  His beetling brows were drawn in a
+frown of perplexity for a full quarter of an hour, while he
+rested motionless in his chair, an unlighted cigar between his
+lips.  Then, at last, his face cleared; a grin of satisfaction
+twisted his heavy mouth, and he smote the desk joyously.
+
+"It's a cinch it'll get 'im!" he rumbled, in glee.
+
+He pressed the button-call, and ordered the doorman to send in
+Cassidy.  When the detective appeared a minute later, he went
+directly to his subject with a straightforward energy usual to
+him in his work.
+
+"Does Garson know we've arrested the Turner girl and young
+Gilder?"  And, when he had been answered in the negative: "Or
+that we've got Chicago Red and Dacey here?" 
+
+"No," Cassidy replied.  "He hasn't been spoken to since we made
+the collar.... He seems worried," the detective volunteered.
+
+Burke's broad jowls shook from the force with which he snapped
+his jaws together.
+
+"He'll be more worried before I get through with him!" he
+growled.  He regarded Cassidy speculatively. "Do you remember the
+Third Degree Inspector Burns worked on McGloin?  Well," he went
+on, as the detective nodded assent, "that's what I'm going to do
+to Garson.  He's got imagination, that crook! The things he don't
+know about are the things he's afraid of. After he gets in here,
+I want you to take his pals one after the other, and lock them up
+in the cells there in the corridor.  The shades on the corridor
+windows here will be up, and Garson will see them taken in.  The
+fact of their being there will set his imagination to working
+overtime, all right."
+
+Burke reflected for a moment, and then issued the final
+directions for the execution of his latest plot.
+
+"When you get the buzzer from me, you have young Gilder and the
+Turner woman sent in.  Then, after a while, you'll get another
+buzzer.  When you hear that, come right in here, and tell me that
+the gang has squealed.  I'll do the rest.  Bring Garson here in
+just five minutes.... Tell Dan to come in."
+
+As the detective went out, the doorman promptly entered, and
+thereat Burke proceeded with the further instructions necessary
+to the carrying out of his scheme.
+
+"Take the chairs out of the office, Dan," he directed, "except
+mine and one other--that one!" He indicated a chair standing a
+little way from one end of his desk. "Now, have all the shades
+up."  He chuckled as he added: "That Turner woman saved you the
+trouble with one."
+
+As the doorman went out after having fulfilled these commands,
+the Inspector lighted the cigar which he had retained still in
+his mouth, and then seated himself in the chair that was set
+partly facing the windows opening on the corridor.  He smiled
+with anticipatory triumph as he made sure that the whole length
+of the corridor with the barred doors of the cells was plainly
+visible to one sitting thus.  With a final glance about to make
+certain that all was in readiness, he returned to his chair, and,
+when the door opened, he was, to all appearances, busily engaged
+in writing.
+
+"Here's Garson, Chief," Cassidy announced.
+
+"Hello, Joe!" Burke exclaimed, with a seeming of careless
+friendliness, as the detective went out, and Garson stood
+motionless just within the door.
+
+"Sit down, a minute, won't you?"  the Inspector continued,
+affably.  He did not look up from his writing as he spoke.
+
+Garson's usually strong face was showing weak with fear.  His
+chin, which was commonly very firm, moved a little from uneasy
+twitchings of his lips.  His clear eyes were slightly clouded to
+a look of apprehension, as they roved the room furtively.  He
+made no answer to the Inspector's greeting for a few moments, but
+remained standing without movement, poised alertly as if sensing
+some concealed peril.  Finally, however, his anxiety found
+expression in words.  His tone was pregnant with alarm, though he
+strove to make it merely complaining.
+
+"Say, what am I arrested for?"  he protested.  "I ain't done
+anything."
+
+Even now, Burke did not look up, and his pen continued to hurry
+over the paper.
+
+"Who told you you were arrested?"  he remarked, cheerfully, in
+his blandest voice.
+
+Garson uttered an ejaculation of disgust.
+
+"I don't have to be told," he retorted, huffily.  "I'm no college
+president, but, when a cop grabs me and brings me down here, I've
+got sense enough to know I'm pinched."
+
+The Inspector did not interrupt his work, but answered with the
+utmost good nature.
+
+"Is that what they did to you, Joe?  I'll have to speak to
+Cassidy about that.  Now, just you sit down, Joe, won't you?  I
+want to have a little talk with you. I'll be through here in a
+second."  He went on with the writing.
+
+Garson moved forward slightly, to the single chair near the end
+of the desk, and there seated himself mechanically. His face thus
+was turned toward the windows that gave on the corridor, and his
+eyes grew yet more clouded as they rested on the grim doors of
+the cells.  He writhed in his chair, and his gaze jumped from the
+cells to the impassive figure of the man at the desk.  Now, the
+forger's nervousness increased momently it swept beyond his
+control.  Of a sudden, he sprang up, and stepped close to the
+Inspector.
+
+"Say," he said, in a husky voice, "I'd like--I'd like to have a
+lawyer."
+
+"What's the matter with you, Joe?"  the Inspector returned,
+always with that imperturbable air, and without raising his head
+from the work that so engrossed his attention. "You know, you're
+not arrested, Joe.  Maybe, you never will be.  Now, for the love
+of Mike, keep still, and let me finish this letter."
+
+Slowly, very hesitatingly, Garson went back to the chair, and
+sank down on it in a limp attitude of dejection wholly unlike his
+customary postures of strength. Again, his fear-fascinated eyes
+went to the row of cells that stood silently menacing on the
+other side of the corridor beyond the windows.  His face was
+tinged with gray.  A physical sickness was creeping stealthily on
+him, as his thoughts held insistently to the catastrophe that
+threatened.  His intelligence was too keen to permit a belief
+that Burke's manner of almost fulsome kindliness hid nothing
+ominous--ominous with a hint of death for him in return for the
+death he had wrought.
+
+Then, terror crystallized.  His eyes were caught by a figure, the
+figure of Cassidy, advancing there in the corridor.  And with the
+detective went a man whose gait was slinking, craven.  A
+cell-door swung open, the prisoner stepped within, the door
+clanged to, the bolts shot into their sockets noisily.
+
+Garson sat huddled, stricken--for he had recognized the victim
+thrust into the cell before his eyes.... It was Dacey, one of his
+own cronies in crime--Dacey, who, the night before, had seen him
+kill Eddie Griggs. There was something concretely sinister to
+Garson in this fact of Dacey's presence there in the cell.
+
+Of a sudden, the forger cried out raucously:
+
+"Say, Inspector, if you've got anything on me, I--I would----"
+The cry dropped into unintelligible mumblings.
+
+Burke retained his manner of serene indifference to the other's
+agitation.  Still, his pen hurried over the paper; and he did not
+trouble to look up as he expostulated, half-banteringly.
+
+"Now, now! What's the matter with you, Joe?  I told you that I
+wanted to ask you a few questions. That's all."
+
+Garson leaped to his feet again resolutely, then faltered, and
+ultimately fell back into the chair with a groan, as the
+Inspector went on speaking.
+
+"Now, Joe, sit down, and keep still, I tell you, and let me get
+through with this job.  It won't take me more than a minute
+more."
+
+But, after a moment, Garson's emotion forced hint to another
+appeal.
+
+"Say, Inspector----" he began.
+
+Then, abruptly, he was silent, his mouth still open to utter the
+words that were now held back by horror. Again, he saw the
+detective walking forward, out there in the corridor.  And with
+him, as before, was a second figure, which advanced slinkingly. 
+Garson leaned forward in his chair, his head thrust out, watching
+in rigid suspense.  Again, even as before, the door swung wide,
+the prisoner slipped within, the door clanged shut, the bolts
+clattered noisily into their sockets.
+
+And, in the watcher, terror grew--for he had seen the face of
+Chicago Red, another of his pals, another who had seen him kill
+Griggs.  For a time that seemed to him long ages of misery,
+Garson sat staring dazedly at the closed doors of the tier of
+cells.  The peril about him was growing--growing, and it was a
+deadly peril! At last, he licked his dry lips, and his voice
+broke in a throaty whisper.
+
+"Say, Inspector, if you've got anything against me, why----"
+
+"Who said there was anything against you, Joe?"  Burke rejoined,
+in a voice that was genially chiding. "What's the matter with you
+to-day, Joe?  You seem nervous."  Still, the official kept on
+with his writing.
+
+"No, I ain't nervous," Garson cried, with a feverish effort to
+appear calm.  "Why, what makes you think that?  But this ain't
+exactly the place you'd pick out as a pleasant one to spend the
+morning."  He was silent for a little, trying with all his
+strength to regain his self-control, but with small success.
+
+"Could I ask you a question?"  he demanded finally, with more
+firmness in his voice.
+
+"What is it?" Burke said.
+
+Garson cleared his throat with difficulty, and his voice was
+thick.
+
+"I was just going to say--" he began.  Then, he hesitated, and
+was silent, at a loss.
+
+"Well, what is it, Joe?"  the Inspector prompted.
+
+"I was going to say--that is--well, if it's anything about Mary
+Turner, I don't know a thing--not a thing!" 
+
+It was the thought of possible peril to her that now, in an
+instant, had caused him to forget his own mortal danger.  Where,
+before, he had been shuddering over thoughts of the death-house
+cell that might be awaiting him, he now had concern only for the
+safety of the woman he cherished.  And there was a great grief in
+his soul; for it was borne in on him that his own folly, in
+disobedience to her command, had led up to the murder of
+Griggs--and to all that might come of the crime. How could he
+ever make amends to her?  At least, he could be brave here, for
+her sake, if not for his own.
+
+Burke believed that his opportunity was come.
+
+"What made you think I wanted to know anything about her?"  he
+questioned.
+
+"Oh, I can't exactly say," Garson replied carelessly, in an
+attempt to dissimulate his agitation.  "You were up to the house,
+you know.  Don't you see?" 
+
+"I did want to see her, that's a fact," Burke admitted. He kept
+on with his writing, his head bent low. "But she wasn't at her
+flat.  I guess she must have taken my advice, and skipped out. 
+Clever girl, that!" 
+
+Garson contrived to present an aspect of comparative
+indifference.
+
+"Yes," he agreed.  "I was thinking of going West, myself," he
+ventured.
+
+"Oh, were you?"  Burke exclaimed; and, now, there was a new note
+in his voice.  His hand slipped into the pocket where was the
+pistol, and clutched it.  He stared at Garson fiercely, and spoke
+with a rush of the words:
+
+"Why did you kill Eddie Griggs?" 
+
+"I didn't kill him!" The reply was quick enough, but it came
+weakly.  Again, Garson was forced to wet his lips with a dry
+tongue, and to swallow painfully.  "I tell you, I didn't kill
+him!" he repeated at last, with more force.
+
+Burke sneered his disbelief.
+
+"You killed him last night--with this!" he cried, viciously.  On
+the instant, the pistol leaped into view, pointed straight at
+Garson.  "Why?"  the Inspector shouted.  "Come on, now! Why?" 
+
+"I didn't, I tell you!" Garson was growing stronger, since at
+last the crisis was upon him.  He got to his feet with lithe
+swiftness of movement, and sprang close to the desk.  He bent his
+head forward challengingly, to meet the glare of his accuser's
+eyes.  There was no flinching in his own steely stare.  His
+nerves had ceased their jangling under the tautening of
+necessity.
+
+"You did!" Burke vociferated.  He put his whole will into the
+assertion of guilt, to batter down the man's resistance. "You
+did, I tell you! You did!" 
+
+Garson leaned still further forward, until his face was almost
+level with the Inspector's.  His eyes were unclouded now, were
+blazing.  His voice came resonant in its denial.  The entire pose
+of him was intrepid, dauntless.
+
+"And I tell you, I didn't!" 
+
+There passed many seconds, while the two men battled in silence,
+will warring against will. ... In the end, it was the murderer
+who triumphed.
+
+Suddenly, Burke dropped the pistol into his pocket, and lolled
+back in his chair.  His gaze fell away from the man confronting
+him.  In the same instant, the rigidity of Garson's form relaxed,
+and he straightened slowly. A tide of secret joy swept through
+him, as he realized his victory.  But his outward expression
+remained unchanged.
+
+"Oh, well," Burke exclaimed amiably, "I didn't really think you
+did, but I wasn't sure, so I had to take a chance.  You
+understand, don't you, Joe?" 
+
+"Sure, I understand," Garson replied, with an amiability equal to
+the Inspector's own.
+
+Burke's manner continued very amicable as he went on speaking.
+
+"You see, Joe, anyhow, we've got the right party safe enough. 
+You can bet on that!" 
+
+Garson resisted the lure.
+
+"If you don't want me----" he began suggestively; and he turned
+toward the door to the outer hall.  "Why, if you don't want me,
+I'll--get along."
+
+"Oh, what's the hurry, Joe?"  Burke retorted, with the effect of
+stopping the other short.  He pressed the buzzer as the agreed
+signal to Cassidy.  "Where did you say Mary Turner was last
+night?" 
+
+At the question, all Garson's fears for the woman rushed back on
+him with appalling force.  Of what avail his safety, if she were
+still in peril?
+
+"I don't know where she was," he exclaimed, doubtfully.  He
+realized his blunder even as the words left his lips, and sought
+to correct it as best he might.  "Why, yes, I do, too," he went
+on, as if assailed by sudden memory.  "I dropped into her place
+kind of late, and they said she'd gone to bed--headache, I
+guess.... Yes, she was home, of course.  She didn't go out of the
+house, all night."  His insistence on the point was of itself
+suspicious, but eagerness to protect her stultified his wits.
+
+Burke sat grim and silent, offering no comment on the lie.
+
+"Know anything about young Gilder?"  he demanded. "Happen to know
+where he is now?"  He arose and came around the desk, so that he
+stood close to Garson, at whom he glowered.
+
+"Not a thing!" was the earnest answer.  But the speaker's fear
+rose swiftly, for the linking of these names was
+significant--frightfully significant!
+
+The inner door opened, and Mary Turner entered the office. 
+Garson with difficulty suppressed the cry of distress that rose
+to his lips.  For a few moments, the silence was unbroken.  Then,
+presently, Burke, by a gesture, directed the girl to advance
+toward the center of the room.  As she obeyed, he himself went a
+little toward the door, and, when it opened again, and Dick
+Gilder appeared, he interposed to check the young man's rush
+forward as his gaze fell on his bride, who stood regarding him
+with sad eyes.
+
+Garson stared mutely at the burly man in uniform who held their
+destinies in the hollow of a hand.  His lips parted as if he were
+about to speak.  Then, he bade defiance to the impulse.  He
+deemed it safer for all that he should say nothing--now!... And
+it is very easy to say a word too many.  And that one may be a
+word never to be unsaid--or gainsaid.
+
+Then, while still that curious, dynamic silence endured, Cassidy
+came briskly into the office.  By some magic of duty, he had
+contrived to give his usually hebetudinous features an expression
+of enthusiasm.
+
+"Say, Chief," the detective said rapidly, "they've squealed!" 
+
+Burke regarded his aide with an air intolerably triumphant. His
+voice came smug:
+
+"Squealed, eh?"  His glance ran over Garson for a second, then
+made its inquisition of Mary and of Dick Gilder.  He did not give
+a look to Cassidy as he put his question.  "Do they tell the same
+story?"  And then, when the detective had answered in the
+affirmative, he went on speaking in tones ponderous with
+self-complacency; and, now, his eyes held sharply, craftily, on
+the woman.
+
+"I was right then, after all--right, all the time! Good enough!"
+Of a sudden, his voice boomed somberly. "Mary Turner, I want you
+for the murder of----"
+
+Garson's rush halted the sentence.  He had leaped forward.  His
+face was rigid.  He broke on the Inspector's words with a gesture
+of fury.  His voice came in a hiss:
+
+"That's a damned lie!...  I did it!" 
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV. ANGUISH AND BLISS.
+
+Joe Garson had shouted his confession without a second of
+reflection.  But the result must have been the same had he taken
+years of thought.  Between him and her as the victim of the law,
+there could be no hesitation for choice.  Indeed, just now, he
+had no heed to his own fate.  The prime necessity was to save
+her, Mary, from the toils of the law that were closing around
+her.  For himself, in the days to come, there would be a ghastly
+dread, but there would never be regret over the cost of saving
+her.  Perhaps, some other he might have let suffer in his
+stead--not her! Even, had he been innocent, and she guilty of the
+crime, he would still have taken the burden of it on his own
+shoulders.  He had saved her from the waters--he would save her
+until the end, as far as the power in him might lie.  It was thus
+that, with the primitive directness of his reverential love for
+the girl, he counted no sacrifice too great in her behalf.  Joe
+Garson was not a good man, at the world esteems goodness.  On the
+contrary, he was distinctly an evil one, a menace to the society
+on which he preyed constantly.  But his good qualities, if few,
+were of the strongest fiber, rooted in the deeps of him. He
+loathed treachery.  His one guiltiness in this respect had been,
+curiously enough, toward Mary herself, in the scheme of the
+burglary, which she had forbidden.  But, in the last analysis,
+here his deceit had been designed to bring affluence to her.  It
+was his abhorrence of treachery among pals that had driven him to
+the murder of the stool-pigeon in a fit of ungovernable passion.
+He might have stayed his hand then, but for the gusty rage that
+swept him on to the crime.  None the less, had he spared the man,
+his hatred of the betrayer would have been the same.... And the
+other virtue of Joe Garson was the complement of this--his own
+loyalty, a loyalty that made him forget self utterly where he
+loved.  The one woman who had ever filled his heart was Mary, and
+for her his life were not too much to give.
+
+The suddenness of it all held Mary voiceless for long seconds. 
+She was frozen with horror of the event.
+
+When, at last, words came, they were a frantic prayer of protest.
+
+"No, Joe! No! Don't talk--don't talk!" 
+
+Burke, immensely gratified, went nimbly to his chair, and thence
+surveyed the agitated group with grisly pleasure.
+
+"Joe has talked," he said, significantly.
+
+Mary, shaken as she was by the fact of Garson's confession,
+nevertheless retained her presence of mind sufficiently to resist
+with all her strength.
+
+"He did it to protect me," she stated, earnestly.
+
+The Inspector disdained such futile argument.  As the doorman
+appeared in answer to the buzzer, he directed that the
+stenographer be summoned at once.
+
+"We'll have the confession in due form," he remarked, gazing
+pleasedly on the three before him.
+
+"He's not going to confess," Mary insisted, with spirit.
+
+But Burke was not in the least impressed.  He disregarded her
+completely, and spoke mechanically to Garson the formal warning
+required by the law.
+
+"You are hereby cautioned that anything you say may be used
+against you."  Then, as the stenographer entered, he went on with
+lively interest.  "Now, Joe!" 
+
+Yet once again, Mary protested, a little wildly.
+
+"Don't speak, Joe! Don't say a word till we can get a lawyer for
+you!" 
+
+The man met her pleading eyes steadily, and shook his head in
+refusal.
+
+"It's no use, my girl," Burke broke in, harshly.  "I told you I'd
+get you.  I'm going to try you and Garson, and the whole gang for
+murder--yes, every one of you.... And you, Gilder," he continued,
+lowering on the young man who had defied him so obstinately,
+"you'll go to the House of Detention as a material witness."  He
+turned his gaze to Garson again, and spoke authoritatively: "Come
+on now, Joe!" 
+
+Garson went a step toward the desk, and spoke decisively.
+
+"If I come through, you'll let her go--and him?"  he added as an
+afterthought, with a nod toward Dick Gilder.
+
+"Oh, Joe, don't!" Mary cried, bitterly.  "We'll spend every
+dollar we can raise to save you!" 
+
+"Now, it's no use," the Inspector complained.  "You're only
+wasting time.  He's said that he did it.  That's all there is to
+it.  Now that we're sure he's our man, he hasn't got a chance in
+the world."
+
+"Well, how about it?"  Garson demanded, savagely. "Do they go
+clear, if I come through?" 
+
+"We'll get the best lawyers in the country," Mary persisted,
+desperately.  "We'll save you, Joe--we'll save you!" 
+
+Garson regarded the distraught girl with wistful eyes. But there
+was no trace of yielding in his voice as he replied, though he
+spoke very sorrowfully.
+
+"No, you can't help me," he said, simply.  "My time has come,
+Mary.... And I can save you a lot of trouble."
+
+"He's right there," Burke ejaculated.  "We've got him cold.  So,
+what's the use of dragging you two into it?" 
+
+"Then, they go clear?"  Garson exclaimed, eagerly. "They ain't
+even to be called as witnesses?" 
+
+Burke nodded assent.
+
+"You're on!" he agreed.
+
+"Then, here goes!" Garson cried; and he looked expectantly toward
+the stenographer.
+
+The strain of it all was sapping the will of the girl, who saw
+the man she so greatly esteemed for his service to her and his
+devotion about to condemn himself to death.  She grew
+half-hysterical.  Her words came confusedly:
+
+"No, Joe! No, no, no!" 
+
+Again, Garson shook his head in absolute refusal of her plea.
+
+"There's no other way out," he declared, wearily. "I'm going
+through with it."  He straightened a little, and again looked at
+the stenographer.  His voice came quietly, without any
+tremulousnesss.
+
+"My name is Joe Garson."
+
+"Alias?"  Burke suggested.
+
+"Alias nothing!" came the sharp retort.  "Garson's my monaker.  I
+shot English Eddie, because he was a skunk, and a stool-pigeon,
+and he got just what was coming to him."  Vituperation beyond the
+mere words beat in his voice now.
+
+Burke twisted uneasily in his chair.
+
+"Now, now!" he objected, severely.  "We can't take a confession
+like that."
+
+Garson shook his head--spoke with fiercer hatred. "because he was
+a skunk, and a stool-pigeon," he repeated.  "Have you got it?" 
+And then, as the stenographer nodded assent, he went on, less
+violently: "I croaked him just as he was going to call the bulls
+with a police-whistle.  I used a gun with smokeless powder.  It
+had a Maxim silencer on it, so that it didn't make any noise."
+
+Garson paused, and the set despair of his features lightened a
+little.  Into his voice came a tone of exultation indescribably
+ghastly.  It was born of the eternal egotism of the criminal,
+fattening vanity in gloating over his ingenuity for evil. 
+Garson, despite his two great virtues, had the vices of his
+class.  Now, he stared at Burke with a quizzical grin crooking
+his lips.
+
+"Say," he exclaimed, "I'll bet it's the first time a guy was ever
+croaked with one of them things! Ain't it?" 
+
+The Inspector nodded affirmation.  There was sincere admiration
+in his expression, for he was ready at all times to respect the
+personal abilities of the criminals against whom he waged
+relentless war.
+
+"That's right, Joe!" he said, with perceptible enthusiasm.
+
+"Some class to that, eh?"  Garson demanded, still with that
+gruesome air of boasting.  "I got the gun, and the Maxim-silencer
+thing, off a fence in Boston," he explained. "Say, that thing
+cost me sixty dollars, and it's worth every cent of the money....
+Why, they'll remember me as the first to spring one of them
+things, won't they?" 
+
+"They sure will, Joe!" the Inspector conceded.
+
+"Nobody knew I had it," Garson continued, dropping his braggart
+manner abruptly.
+
+At the words, Mary started, and her lips moved as if she were
+about to speak.
+
+Garson, intent on her always, though he seemed to look only at
+Burke, observed the effect on her, and repeated his words
+swiftly, with a warning emphasis that gave the girl pause.
+
+"Nobody knew I had it--nobody in the world!" he declared.  "And
+nobody had anything to do with the killing but me."
+
+Burke put a question that was troubling him much, concerning the
+motive that lay behind the shooting of Griggs.
+
+"Was there any bad feeling between you and Eddie Griggs?" 
+
+Garson's reply was explicit.
+
+"Never till that very minute.  Then, I learned the truth about
+what he'd framed up with you."  The speaker's voice reverted to
+its former fierceness in recollection of the treachery of one
+whom he had trusted.
+
+"He was a stool-pigeon, and I hated his guts! That's all," he
+concluded, with brutal candor.
+
+The Inspector moved restlessly in his chair.  He had only
+detestation for the slain man, yet there was something morbidly
+distasteful in the thought that he himself had contrived the
+situation which had resulted in the murder of his confederate. 
+It was only by an effort that he shook off the vague feeling of
+guilt.
+
+"Nothing else to say?"  he inquired.
+
+Garson reflected for a few seconds, then made a gesture of
+negation.
+
+"Nothing else," he declared.  "I croaked him, and I'm glad I done
+it.  He was a skunk.  That's all, and it's enough.  And it's all
+true, so help me God!" 
+
+The Inspector nodded dismissal to the stenographer, with an air
+of relief.
+
+"That's all, Williams," he said, heavily.  "He'll sign it as soon
+as you've transcribed the notes."
+
+Then, as the stenographer left the room, Burke turned his gaze on
+the woman, who stood there in a posture of complete dejection,
+her white, anguished face downcast.  There was triumph in the
+Inspector's voice as he addressed her, for his professional pride
+was full-fed by this victory over his foes.  But there was, too,
+an undertone of a feeling softer than pride, more generous,
+something akin to real commiseration for this unhappy girl who
+drooped before him, suffering so poignantly in the knowledge of
+the fate that awaited the man who had saved her, who had loved
+her so unselfishly
+
+"Young woman," Burke said briskly, "it's just like I told you. 
+You can't beat the law.  Garson thought he could--and now----!"
+He broke off, with a wave of his hand toward the man who had just
+sentenced himself to death in the electric-chair.
+
+"That's right," Garson agreed, with somber intensity. His eyes
+were grown clouded again now, and his voice dragged leaden. 
+"That's right, Mary," he repeated dully, after a little pause. 
+"You can't beat the law!" 
+
+There followed a period of silence, in which great emotions were
+vibrant from heart to heart.  Garson was thinking of Mary, and,
+with the thought, into his misery crept a little comfort.  At
+least, she would go free.  That had been in the bargain with
+Burke.  And there was the boy, too.  His eyes shot a single swift
+glance toward Dick Gilder, and his satisfaction increased as he
+noted the alert poise of the young man's body, the strained
+expression of the strong face, the gaze of absorbed yearning with
+which he regarded Mary.  There could be no doubt concerning the
+depth of the lad's love for the girl.  Moreover, there were manly
+qualities in him to work out all things needful for her
+protection through life.  Already, he had proved his devotion,
+and that abundantly, his unswerving fidelity to her, and the
+force within him that made these worthy in some measure of her.
+
+Garson felt no least pang of jealousy.  Though he loved the woman
+with the single love of his life, he had never, somehow, hoped
+aught for himself.  There was even something almost of the
+paternal in the purity of his love, as if, indeed, by the fact of
+restoring her to life he had taken on himself the responsibility
+of a parent.  He knew that the boy worshiped her, would do his
+best for her, that this best would suffice for her happiness in
+time.  Garson, with the instinct of love, guessed that Mary had
+in truth given her heart all unaware to the husband whom she had
+first lured only for the lust of revenge.  Garson nodded his head
+in a melancholy satisfaction.  His life was done: hers was just
+beginning, now.... But she would remember him --oh, yes, always!
+Mary was loyal.
+
+The man checked the trend of his thoughts by a mighty effort of
+will.  He must not grow maudlin here. He spoke again to Mary,
+with a certain dignity.
+
+"No, you can't beat the law!" He hesitated a little, then went
+on, with a certain curious embarrassment. "And this same old law
+says a woman must stick to her man."
+
+The girl's eyes met his with passionate sorrow in their misty
+deeps.  Garson gave a significant glance toward Dick Gilder, then
+his gaze returned to her.  There was a smoldering despair in that
+look.  There were, as well, an entreaty and a command.
+
+"So," he went on, "you must go along with him, Mary..  .  . 
+Won't you?  It's the best thing to do."
+
+The girl could not answer.  There was a clutch on her throat just
+then, which would not relax at the call of her will.
+
+The tension of a moment grew, became pervasive. Burke, accustomed
+as he was to scenes of dramatic violence, now experienced an
+altogether unfamiliar thrill. As for Garson, once again the surge
+of feeling threatened to overwhelm his self-control.  He must not
+break down! For Mary's sake, he must show himself stoical, quite
+undisturbed in this supreme hour.
+
+Of a sudden, an inspiration came to him, a means to snap the
+tension, to create a diversion wholly efficacious. He would turn
+to his boasting again, would call upon his vanity, which he knew
+well as his chief foible, and make it serve as the foil against
+his love.  He strove manfully to throw off the softer mood.  In a
+measure, at least, he won the fight--though always, under the
+rush of this vaunting, there throbbed the anguish of his heart.
+
+"You want to cut out worrying about me," he counseled, bravely. 
+"Why, I ain't worrying any, myself--not a little bit! You see,
+it's something new I've pulled off.  Nobody ever put over
+anything like it before."
+
+He faced Burke with a grin of gloating again.
+
+"I'll bet there'll be a lot of stuff in the newspapers about
+this, and my picture, too, in most of 'em! What?" 
+
+The man's manner imposed on Burke, though Mary felt the torment
+that his vainglorying was meant to mask.
+
+"Say," Garson continued to the Inspector, "if the reporters want
+any pictures of me, could I have some new ones taken?  The one
+you've got of me in the Gallery is over ten years old.  I've
+taken off my beard since then.  Can I have a new one?"  He put
+the question with an eagerness that seemed all sincere.
+
+Burke answered with a fine feeling of generosity.
+
+"Sure, you can, Joe! I'll send you up to the Gallery right now."
+
+"Immense!" Garson cried, boisterously.  He moved toward Dick
+Gilder, walking with a faint suggestion of swagger to cover the
+nervous tremor that had seized him.
+
+"So long, young fellow!" he exclaimed, and held out his hand. 
+"You've been on the square, and I guess you always will be."
+
+Dick had no scruple in clasping that extended hand very warmly in
+his own.  He had no feeling of repulsion against this man who had
+committed a murder in his presence.  Though he did not quite
+understand the other's heart, his instinct as a lover taught him
+much, so that he pitied profoundly--and respected, too.
+
+"We'll do what we can for you," he said, simply.
+
+"That's all right," Garson replied, with such carelessness of
+manner as he could contrive.  Then, at last, he turned to Mary. 
+This parting must be bitter, and he braced himself with all the
+vigors of his will to combat the weakness that leaped from his
+soul.
+
+As he came near, the girl could hold herself in leash no longer. 
+She threw herself on his breast.  Her arms wreathed about his
+neck.  Great sobs racked her.
+
+"Oh, Joe, Joe!" The gasping cry was of utter despair.
+
+Garson's trembling hand patted the girl's shoulder very softly, a
+caress of infinite tenderness.
+
+"That's all right!" he murmured, huskily.  "That's all right,
+Mary!" There was a short silence; and then he went on speaking,
+more firmly.  "You know, he'll look after you."
+
+He would have said more, but he could not.  It seemed to him that
+the sobs of the girl caught in his own throat. Yet, presently, he
+strove once again, with every reserve of his strength; and,
+finally, he so far mastered himself that he could speak calmly. 
+The words were uttered with a subtle renunciation that was this
+man's religion.
+
+"Yes, he'll take care of you.  Why, I'd like to see the two of
+you with about three kiddies playing round the house."
+
+He looked up over the girl's shoulder, and beckoned with his head
+to Dick, who came forward at the summons.
+
+"Take good care of her, won't you?" 
+
+He disengaged himself gently from the girl's embrace, and set her
+within the arms of her husband, where she rested quietly, as if
+unable to fight longer against fate's decree.
+
+"Well, so long!" 
+
+He dared not utter another word, but turned blindly, and went,
+stumbling a little, toward the doorman, who had appeared in
+answer to the Inspector's call.
+
+"To the Gallery," Burke ordered, curtly.
+
+Garson went on without ever a glance back.... His strength was at
+an end.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+There was a long silence in the room after Garson's passing.  It
+was broken, at last, by the Inspector, who got up from his chair,
+and advanced toward the husband and wife.  In his hand, he
+carried a sheet of paper, roughly scrawled.  As he stopped before
+the two, and cleared his throat, Mary withdrew herself from
+Dick's arms, and regarded the official with brooding eyes from
+out her white face.  Something strange in her enemy's expression
+caught her attention, something that set new hopes alive within
+her in a fashion wholly inexplicable, so that she waited with a
+sudden, breathless eagerness.
+
+Burke extended the sheet of paper to the husband.
+
+"There's a document," he said gruffly.  "It's a letter from one
+Helen Morris, in which she sets forth the interesting fact that
+she pulled off a theft in the Emporium, for which your Mrs.
+Gilder here did time. You know, your father got your Mrs. Gilder
+sent up for three years for that same job--which she didn't do!
+That's why she had such a grudge against your father, and against
+the law, too!" 
+
+Burke chuckled, as the young man took the paper, wonderingly.
+
+"I don't know that I blame her much for that grudge, when all's
+said and done.... You give that document to your father.  It sets
+her right.  He's a just man according to his lights, your father. 
+He'll do all he can to make things right for her, now he knows."
+
+Once again, the Inspector paused to chuckle.
+
+"I guess she'll keep within the law from now on," he continued,
+contentedly, "without getting a lawyer to tell her how.... Now,
+you two listen.  I've got to go out a minute.  When I get back, I
+don't want to find anybody here--not anybody! Do you get me?" 
+
+He strode from the room, fearful lest further delay might involve
+him in sentimental thanksgivings from one or the other, or
+both--and Burke hated sentiment as something distinctly
+unprofessional.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+When the official was gone, the two stood staring mutely each at
+the other through long seconds.  What she read in the man's eyes
+set the woman's heart to beating with a new delight.  A bloom of
+exquisite rose grew in the pallor of her cheeks.  The misty light
+in the violet eyes shone more radiant, yet more softly.  The
+crimson lips curved to strange tenderness.... What he read in her
+eyes set the husband's pulses to bounding. He opened his arms in
+an appeal that was a command. Mary went forward slowly, without
+hesitation, in a bliss that forgot every sorrow for that blessed
+moment, and cast herself on his breast.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Within the Law by Marvin Dana
+