X. ON THE BRINK
Rhoda Gray moved quietly, inch by inch, along the side of the wall togain a point of vantage more nearly opposite the lighted doorway. Andthen she stopped again. She could see quite clearly now--that is, therewas nothing now to obstruct her view; but the light was miserable andpoor, and the single gas-jet that wheezed and flickered did little morethan disperse the shadows from its immediate neighborhood in that innerroom. But she could see enough--she could see the bent and ill-cladfigure of Nicky Viner, as she remembered him, an old, gray-bearded man,wringing his hands in groveling misery, while the mumbling voice, nowwhining and pleading, now servile, now plucking up courage to indulgein abuse, kept on without even, it seemed, a pause for breath. And shecould see the Adventurer, quite unmoved, quite debonair, a curiouslypatient smile on his face, standing there, much nearer to her, his righthand in the side pocket of his coat, a somewhat significant habit ofhis, his left hand holding a sheaf of folded, legal-looking documents.
And then she heard the Adventurer speak.
"What a flow of words!" said the Adventurer, in a bored voice. "You willforgive me, my dear Mr. Viner, if I appear to be facetious, which I amnot--but money talks."
"You are a thief, a robber!" The old gray-bearded figure rocked on itsfeet and kept wringing its hands. "Get out of here! Get out! Do youhear? Get out! You come to steal from a poor old man, and--"
"Must we go all over that again?" interrupted the Adventurer wearily."I have not come to steal anything; I have simply come to sell you thesepapers, which I am quite sure, once you control yourself and give thematter a little calm consideration, you are really most anxious tobuy--at any price.
"It's a lie!" the other croaked hoarsely. "Those papers are a lie! Iam innocent. And I haven't got any money. None! I haven't any. I ampoor--an old man--and poor."
Rhoda Gray felt the blood flush hotly to her cheeks. Somehow she couldfeel no sympathy for that cringing figure in there; but she felt a hotresentment toward that dapper, immaculately dressed and self-possessedyoung man, who stood there, silently now, tapping the papers withprovoking coolness against the edge of the plain deal table in front ofhim. And somehow the resentment seemed to take a most peculiar phase.She resented the fact that she should feel resentment, no matter whatthe man did or said. It was as though, instead of anger, impersonalanger, at this low, miserable act of his, she felt ashamed of him. Herhand clenched fiercely as she crouched there against the wall. It wasn'ttrue! She felt nothing of the sort! Why should she be ashamed of him?What was he to her? He was frankly a thief, wasn't he? And he was at hispitiful calling now--down to the lowest dregs of it. What else did sheexpect? Because he had the appearance of a gentleman, was it that hersense of gratitude for what she owed him had made her, deep down in hersoul, actually cherish the belief that he really was one--made her hopeit, and nourish that hope into belief? Tighter her hand clenched. Herlips parted, and her breath came in short, hard inhalations. Was ittrue? Was it all only an added misery, where it had seemed there couldbe none to add to her life in these last few days? Was it true thatthere was no price she would not have paid to have found him in any rolebut this abased one that he was playing now?
The Adventurer broke the silence.
"Quite so, my dear Mr. Viner!" he agreed smoothly. "It would appear,then, from what you say that I have been mistaken--even stupidly so, Iam afraid. And in that case, I can only apologize for my intrusion, and,as you so delicately put it, get out." He slipped the papers, with aphilosophic shrug of his shoulders, into his inside coat pocket, andtook a backward step toward the door. "I bid you good-night, then, Mr.Viner. The papers, as you state, are doubtless of no value to you, soyou can, of course, have no objection to my handing them over to thepolice, who--"
"No, no! Wait! Wait!" the other whispered wildly. "Wait!"
"Ah!" murmured the Adventurer.
"I--I'll"--the bent old figure was clawing at his beard--"I'll--"
"Buy them?" suggested the Adventurer pleasantly.
"Yes, I'll--I'll buy them. I--I've got a little money, only a little,all I've been able to save in years, a--a hundred dollars.
"How much did you say?" inquired the Adventurer coldly.
"Two hundred." The voice was a maudlin whine.
The Adventurer took another backward step toward the door.
"Three hundred!"
Another step.
"Five--a thousand!"
The Adventurer laughed suddenly.
"That's better!" he said. "Where you keep a thousand, you keep the rest.Where is the thousand, Mr. Viner?"
The bent figure hesitated a moment; and then, with what sounded like adespairing cry, pointed to the table.
"It's there," he whimpered. "God's curses on you, for the thief youare."
Rhoda Gray found her eyes fixed in sudden, strained fascination on thetable--as, she imagined, the Adventurer's were too. It was bare of anycovering, nor were there any articles on its surface, nor, as far as shecould see, was there any drawer. And now the Adventurer, his right handstill in his coat pocket, and bulging there where she knew quite wellit grasped his revolver, stepped abruptly to the table, facing the otherwith the table between them.
The bent old figure still hesitated, and then, with the despairing cryagain, grasped at the top of the table, and jerked it toward him. Thesurface seemed to slide sideways a little way, a matter of two or threeinches, and then stick there; but the Adventurer, in an instant, hadthrust the fingers of his left hand into the crevice. He drew out anumber of loose banknotes, and thrust his fingers in again for a furthersupply.
"Open it wider!" he commanded curtly.
"I--I'm trying to," the other mumbled, and bent down to peer under thetable. "It's stuck. The catch is underneath, and--"
It seemed to Rhoda Gray, gazing into that dimly lighted room, as thoughshe were suddenly held spellbound as in some horrible and amazingtrance. Like a hideous jack-in-the-box the gray head popped above thelevel of the table again, and quick as a flash, a revolver wasthrust into the Adventurer's face; and the Adventurer, caught ata disadvantage, since his hand in his coat pocket was below theintervening table top, stood there as though instantaneously transformedinto some motionless, inanimate thing, his fingers still gripping atanother sheaf of banknotes that he had been in the act of scooping outfrom the narrow aperture.
And then again Rhoda Gray stared, and stared now as though bereft of hersenses; and upon her crept, cold and deadly, a fear and a terror thatseemed to engulf her very soul itself. That head that looked like ajack-in-the-box was gone; the gray beard seemed suddenly to be shornaway, and the gray hair too, and to fall and flutter to the table, andthe bent shoulders were not bent any more, and it wasn't Nicky Viner atall--only a clever, a wonderfully clever, impersonation that had beenhelped out by the poor and meager light. And terror gripped at heragain, for it wasn't Nicky Viner. Those narrowed eyes, that leering,gloating face, those working lips were Danglar's.
And, as from some far distance, dulled because her consciousness wasdulled, she heard Danglar speak.
"Perhaps you'll take your hand out of that right-hand coat pocket ofyours now!" sneered Danglar. "And take it out--empty!"
The Adventurer's face, as nearly as Rhoda Gray could see, had not moveda muscle. He obeyed now, coolly, with a shrug of his shoulders.
Danglar appeared to experience no further trouble with the surface ofthe table now. He suddenly jerked it almost off, displaying what RhodaGray now knew to be the remainder of the large package of banknotes hehad taken from the garret earlier in the evening.
"Help yourself to the rest!" he invited caustically. "There isn't fiftythousand there, but you are quite welcome to all there is--in return forthose papers."
The Adventurer was apparently obsessed with an inspection of his fingernails; he began to polish those of one hand with the palm of the other.
"Quite so, Danglar!" he said coolly. "I admit it--I am ashamed ofmyself. I hate to think that I could be caught by you; but
I suppose Ican find some self-extenuating circumstances. You seem to have risen toan amazingly higher order of intelligence. In fact, for you, Danglar,it is not at all bad!" He went on polishing his nails. "Would you mindtaking that thing out of my face? Even you ought to be able to handle iteffectively a few inches farther away."
Under the studied insult Danglar's face had grown a mottled red.
"Damn you!" he snarled. "I'll take it away when I get good and ready;and by that time I'll have you talking out of the other side of yourmouth! See? Do you know what you're up against, you slick dude?"
"I have a fairly good imagination," replied the Adventurer smoothly.
"You have, eh?" mimicked Danglar wickedly. "Well, you don't need toimagine anything! I'll give you the straight goods so's there won'tbe any chance of a mistake. And never mind about the higher order ofintelligence! It was high enough, and a little to spare, to make youwalk into the trap! I hoped I'd get you both, you and your she-pal, theWhite Moll; that you'd come here together--but I'm not kicking. It's apretty good start to get you!"
"Is it necessary to make a speech?" complained the Adventurermonotonously. "I can't help listening, of course."
"You can make up your mind for yourself when I'm through--whetherit's necessary or not!" retorted Danglar viciously. "I've got a littleproposition to put up to you, and maybe it'll help you to add two andtwo together if I let you see all the cards. Understand? You've had yourrun of luck lately, quite a bit of it, haven't you, you and the WhiteMoll? Well, it's my turn now! You've been queering our game to thelimit, curse you!" Danglar thrust his working face a little farther overthe table, and nearer to the Adventurer. "Well, what was the answer?Where did you get the dope you made your plays with? It was a cinch,wasn't it, that there was a leak somewhere in our own crowd?" He laughedout suddenly. "You poor fool! Did you think you could pull that sort ofstuff forever? Did you? Well, then, how do you like the 'leak' to-night?You get the idea, don't you? Everybody, every last soul that is inwith us, got the details of what they thought was a straight playto-night--and it leaked to you, as I knew it would; and you walked intothe trap, as I knew you would, because the bait was good and juicy, andlooked the easiest thing to annex that ever happened. Fifty thousanddollars! Fifty thousand--nothing! All you had to do was to get a fewpapers that it wouldn't bother any crook to get, even a near--crook likeyou, and then come here and screw the money out of a helpless old man,who was supposed to have been discovered to be a miser. Easy, wasn't it?Only Nicky Viner wasn't a miser! We chose Nicky because of what happenedtwo years ago. It made things look pretty near right, didn't it? Lookedstraight, that part about Perlmer, too, didn't it? That was the come-on.Perlmer never saw those papers you've got there in your pocket. I dopedthem out, and we planted them nice and handy where you could get themwithout much trouble in the drawer of Perlmer's desk, and--"
"It's a long story," interrupted the Adventurer, with quiet insolence.
"It's got a short ending," said Danglar, with an ugly leer. "We couldhave bumped you off when you went for those papers, but if you wentthat far you'd come farther, and that wasn't the place to do it, and wecouldn't cover ourselves there the way we could here. This is the place.We brought that trick table here a while ago, as soon as we had got ridof Nicky Viner. That was the only bit of stage setting we had to doto make the story ring true right up to the curtain, in case it wasnecessary. It wouldn't have been necessary if you and the White Mollhad both come together, for then you would neither of you have got anyfurther than that other room. It would have ended there. But we weren'ttaking any chances. I'll pay you the compliment of admitting that weweren't counting on getting you off your guard any too easily if, asit happened, you came alone, for, being alone, or if either of you werealone, there was that little proposition that had to be settled, insteadof just knocking you on the head out there in the dark in that otherroom; and so, as I say, we weren't overlooking any bets on account ofthe little trouble it took to plant that table and the money. Wetried to think of everything!" Danglar paused for a moment to mock theAdventurer with narrowed eyes. "That's the story; here's the end. Ihoped I'd get you both together, you and the White Moll. I didn't. ButI've got you. I didn't get you both--and that's what gives you a chancefor your life, because she's worth more to us than you are. If you'dbeen together, you would have gone out-together. As it is, I'll see thatyou don't do any more harm anyway, but you get one chance. Where is she?If you answer that, you will, of course, answer a minor question andlocate that 'leak', for me, that I was speaking about a moment ago. Butwe'll take the main thing first. And you can take your choice between abullet and a straight answer. Where is the White Moll?"
Rhoda Gray's hand felt Out along the wall for support. Was this a dream,some ghastly, soul-terrifying nightmare! Danglar! Those working lips!That callous viciousness, that leer in the degenerate face. It seemedto bring a weakness to her limbs, and seek to rob her of the strength tostand. She could not even hope against hope; she knew that Danglar wasin deadly earnest. Danglar would not have the slightest compunction, letalone hesitation, in carrying out his threat. Terrified now, her eyessought the Adventurer. Didn't the Adventurer know Danglar as sheknew him, didn't he realize that there was deadly earnestness behindDanglar's words? Was the man mad, that he stood there utterly unmoved,as though he had no consideration on earth other than those carefullymanicured finger nails of his!
And then Danglar spoke again.
"Do you notice anything special about this gun I'm holding on you?" hedemanded, in low menace.
The Adventurer did not even look up.
"Oh, yes," he said indifferently. "I fancy you got it out of a dimenovel, didn't you? One of those silencer things."
"Yes," said Danglar grimly; "one of those silencer things. Where isshe?"
The Adventurer made no answer.
The color in Danglar's face deepened.
"I'll make things even a little plainer to you," he said with brutalcoolness. "There are two men in our organization from whom it isabsolutely impossible that that leak could have come. Those two menfollowed you from Perlmer's office to this place. They are in the nextroom now waiting for me to get through with you, and ready for anythingif they are needed. But they won't be needed. That's not the way itworks out. This gun won't make much noise, and it isn't likely to arousethe inmates of this dive, but even if it does, it doesn't matter verymuch--we aren't going out by the front door. The two of them, the minutethey hear the shot, slip in here, and lock the door--you see it's got agood, husky bolt on it--and then we beat it by the fire escape thatruns past that window there. Get the idea? And don't kid yourself intothinking that I am taking any risk with the consequences on account ofthe coroner having got busy because a man was found here dead on thefloor. Nicky Viner stands for that. It isn't the first time he's beensuspected of murder. See? Nicky was easy. He'd crawl on his hands andknees from the Battery to Harlem any time if you held a little moneyin front of his nose. He's been fooled up to the eyes with a faked-upmessage that he's to deliver secretly to some faked-up crooks out West.He's just about starting away on the train now. And that's where thepolice nab him--running away from the murder he's pulled in his roomhere to-night. Looks kind of bad for Nicky Viner--eh? We should worry!It cost a hundred dollars and his ticket. Cheap, wasn't it? I guessyou're worth that much to us."
A dull horror seized upon Rhoda Gray. It seemed to clog and confuseher mind. She fought it frantically, striving to think, and to thinkclearly. Every detail seemed to have been planned with Satanic foresightand ingenuity, and yet--and yet--Yes, in one little thing, Danglar hadmade a mistake. That was why she was here now; that was why those men inthat next room had not been out in the hall on guard, or even out in thestreet on watch for her. Danglar had naturally gone upon the suppositionthat the Adventurer and herself worked hand in glove; whereas they wereas much in the dark concerning each other's movements as Danglar himselfwas. Therefore Danglar, and logically enough from his viewpoint, hadjumped to the conclusion t
hat, since they had not come together,only one of them, the Adventurer, was acting in the affair to-night,and--Danglar's voice was rasping in her ears.
"I'm not going to stay here all night!" he snarled. "You've got onechance. I've told you what it is. You're lucky to have it. We'd soonerhave you out of the way for keeps. I'd rather drop you in your tracksthan let you live. Where is the White Moll?"
The Adventurer was side face to the doorway again, and Rhoda Gray sawhim smile contemptuously at Danglar now.
"Really," he said blandly, "I haven't the slightest idea in the world."
Danglar laughed ironically.
"You lie!" he flung out hoarsely. "Do you think you can get away withthat? Well, think again! Sooner or later, it will be all the samewhether you talk or not. We caught you to-night in a trap; we'll catchher in another. Our hand doesn't show here. She'll think that NickyViner was a little too much for you, that's all. Come on, now--quick!Are you fool enough to misunderstand? The 'don't know' stuff won't getyou by!"
"The misunderstanding seems to be on your side." There was a cold,irritating deliberation in the Adventurer's voice. "I repeat that I donot know where the young lady you refer to could be found; but I did notmake that statement with any idea that you would believe it. To a cur,I suppose it is necessary to add that, even if I did know, I should takepleasure in seeing you damned before I told you."
Danglar's face was like a devil's. His revolver held a steady bead onthe Adventurer's head.
"I'll give you a last chance." He spoke through closed teeth. "I'll firewhen I count three. One!"
A horrible fascination held Rhoda Gray. If she cried out, it was morelikely than not to cause Danglar to fire on the instant. It would notsave the Adventurer in any case. It would be but the signal, too, forthose two men in the next room to rush in here.
"Two!"
It seemed as though, not in the hope that it would do any good, butbecause she was going mad with horror, that she would scream out untilthe place rang and rang again with her outcries. Even her soul was infrantic panic. Quick! Quick! She must act! She must! But how? Was thereonly one way? She was conscious that she had drawn her revolver asthough by instinct. Danglar's life, or the Adventurer's! But she shrankfrom taking life. Her lips were breathing a prayer. They had called hera crack shot back there in South America, when she had hunted and riddenwith her father. It was easy enough to hit Danglar, but that might meanDanglar's life; it was not so easy to hit Danglar's arm, or Danglar'shand, or the revolver Danglar held, and if she risked that and missed,she...
"Thr--"
There was the roar of a report that went racketing through the silencelike a cannon shot, and the short, vicious tongue-flame from RhodaGray's revolver muzzle stabbed through the black. There was a scream ofmingled surprise and fury, and the revolver in Danglar's hand clatteredto the floor. She saw the Adventurer spring, quick as a panther, at theother, and saw him whip blow after blow with terrific force full intoDanglar's face; she heard a rush of feet coming from the corridor behindher; and she flung herself forward into the inner room, and, panting,snatched at the door and slammed it shut, and groping for the bolt,found it, and shot it home in its grooves.
And she stood there, weak for the moment, and drew her hand across hereyes--and behind her they pounded on the door, and there came a burstof oaths; and in front of her the Adventurer was smiling gravely ashe covered Danglar with Danglar's own revolver; and Danglar, as thoughdazed and half stunned from the blows he had received, rocked unsteadilyupon his feet. And then her eyes widened a little. The pounding on thedoor, the shouts, the noise, was beginning to arouse what inmates therewere in the tenement, and there wasn't an instant to lose--but theAdventurer now was calmly gathering up, to the last one, and pocketingthem, the banknotes with which Danglar had baited his trap. And as hecrammed the money into his pockets, he spoke to her, with a curioussoftness, a great, strange gentleness in his voice:
"I owe you my life, Miss Gray. That was a wonderful shot. You knockedthe revolver from his hand without even grazing his fingers. A verywonderful shot, and--will you let me say it?--you are a very wonderfulwoman."
"Oh, quick!" she whispered wildly. "I am afraid this door will nothold."
"There is the window, and the fire escape, so our friend here was goodenough to inform me," said the Adventurer, as he composedly pocketed thelast dollar. "Will you open the window, Miss Gray, if you please? I amafraid I hit Mr. Danglar a little ungently, and as he is still somewhatgroggy, I fancy he will need a little assistance. I imagine"--he caughtDanglar suddenly by the collar of his coat as Rhoda Gray ran to thewindow and flung it up, and rushed the man unceremoniously across theroom--"I imagine it would be a mistake to leave him behind. He mightopen the door, or even be unpleasant enough to throw something down onus from above; also he should serve us very well as a hostage. Will yougo first, please, Miss Gray?"
She climbed quickly over the sill to the iron platform. Danglar wasdragged through by the Adventurer, mumbling, and evidently still in ahalf-dazed condition. Windows were opening here and there. From backinside the room, the blows rained more heavily upon the door--and nowthere came the rip and rend of wood, as though a panel had crashed in.
"Hurry, please, Miss Gray!" prompted the Adventurer.
It was dark, almost too dark to see her footing. She felt her way down.It was only one story above the ground, and it did not take long; but itseemed hours since she had fired that shot, though she knew the timehad been measured by scarcely more than a minute. And now, on the lowerplatform, waiting for that queer, double, twisting shadow of the two mento join her, she heard the Adventurers s voice ring out sharply:
"This is your chance, Danglar! I didn't waste the time to bring youalong because it afforded me any amusement. They've found their heads atlast, and gone to the next window, instead of wasting time on thatdoor. They can't reach the fire escape there, but if they fire a singleshot--you go out! You'd better tell them so--and tell them quick!"
And then Danglar's voice shrieked out in sudden, "for God's sake, don'tfire!"
They were all on the lower platform together now. The Adventurer waspressing the muzzle of his revolver into the small of Danglar's back,and was still supporting the man by the collar of his coat.
"I think," said the Adventurer abruptly, "that we can now dispense withMr. Danglar's services, and I am sure a little cool night air out hereon the fire escape will do him good. Miss Gray--would you mind?--there'sa pair of handcuffs in my left-hand coat pocket."
Handcuffs! She could have laughed out idiotically. Handcuffs! Theyseemed the most incongruous things in the world for the Adventurer tohave, and--She felt mechanically in his pocket, and handed them to him.
There was a click as a cuff was snapped over Danglar's wrist, another asthe other cuff was snapped shut around the iron hand-railing of the fireescape. The act seemed to arouse Danglar, both mentally and physically.He tore and wrenched at the steel links now, and burst suddenly, raving,into oaths.
"Hold your tongue, Danglar!" ordered the Adventurer in cold menace;and as the other, cowed, obeyed, the Adventurer swung himself over theplatform and dropped to the ground. "Come, Miss Gray. Drop! I'll catchyou!" he called in a low voice. "One step takes us around the corner ofthe tenement into the lane, and Mr. Danglar won't let them fire at usbefore we can make that--when we could still fire at him!"
She obeyed him, swinging at arm's-length. She felt his hands fold abouther in a firm grasp as she let go her hold, and she caught her breathsuddenly, she did not know why, and felt the hot blood sweep herface--and then she was standing on the ground.
"Now!" he whispered. "Together!"
They sped around the corner of the tenement. A yell from Danglarfollowed them. An echoing yell from above answered--and then a fusilladeof abortive shots, and the sound as of boot heels clattering on the ironrungs of the fire escape; and then, more faintly, for they were puttingdistance behind them as fast as they could run, an excited outburst ofprofanity and exclamatio
ns.
"They won't follow!" panted the Adventurer. "Those shots of theirsoutdoors will have alarmed the police, and they'll try and get Danglarfree first. It's lucky your shot inside wasn't heard by the patrolmanon the beat. I was afraid of that. But we're safe now--from Danglar'scrowd, at least."
But still they ran. They crossed an intersecting street, and continuedon along the lane; then swerving into the next intersecting street,moderated their pace to a rapid walk--and stopped finally only as RhodaGray drew suddenly into the shadows of another alley-way, and held outher hand. They were both safe now, as he had said. And there were somany reasons why, though her resolution faltered a little, she shouldgo the rest of the way alone. She was not sure that she trusted thisstrange "gentleman," who was a thief with his pockets crammed even nowwith the money that had lured him almost to his death; but, too, she wasnot altogether sure that she distrusted him. But all that was secondary.She must, as soon as she could, get back to Gypsy Nan's garret. Likethat other night, she dared not take the risk that Danglar, by anychance, might return there--and find her gone after what had justhappened. The man would be beside himself with fury, suspicious ofeverything-and suspicion would be fatal in its consequences for her.And so she must go. And she could not become Gypsy Nan again with theAdventurer looking on!
"We part here," she said a little unsteadily. "Good-night!"
"Oh, I say, Miss Gray!" he protested quickly. "You don't mean that! Why,look here, I haven't had a chance to tell you what I think, or what Ifeel, about what you've done to-night--for me."
She shook her head.
"There is nothing you need say," she answered quietly. "We are onlyquits. You have done quite as much for me."
"But, see here, Miss Gray!" he pleaded. "Can't we come to someunderstanding? We seem to have a jolly lot in common. Is itquite necessary, really necessary, that you should keep me off atarm's-length? Couldn't you let down the bars just a little? Couldn'tyou tell me, for instance, where I could find you in case of--realnecessity?"
She shook her head again.
"No," she said. "It is impossible."
He drew a little closer. A sudden earnestness deepened his voice, madeit rasp a little, as though it were not wholly within control.
"And suppose, Miss Gray, that I refuse to leave you, or to let you go,now that I have you here, unless you give me more of your confidence?What then?"
"The other night," she said slowly, "you informed me, among otherthings, that you were a gentleman. I believed the other things."
He did not answer for a moment--and then he smiled whimsically.
"You score, Miss Gray," he murmured.
"Good night, then!" she said again. "I will go by the alley here; you bythe street."
"No! Wait!" he said gravely. "If nothing will change your mind--and Ishall not be importunate, for, as we have met three times now throughthe same peculiar chain of circumstances, I know we shall meet again--Ihave something to tell you, before you go. As you already know, I wentto Gypsy Nan's the night after I first saw you, because I felt youneeded help. I went there in the hope that she would know where to findyou, and, failing in that, I left a message for you in the hope that,since she had tricked Rorke in your behalf, you would find means ofcommunicating with her again. But all that is entirely changed now. Yourparticipation in that Hayden-Bond affair the other night makes GypsyNan's place the last in all New York to which you should go."
Rhoda Gray stared through the semi-darkness, suddenly startled,searching the Adventurer's face.
"What do you mean?" she demanded quickly.
"Just this," he answered. "That where before I hoped you would go there,I have spent nearly all the time since then in haunting the vicinity ofGypsy Nan's house to warn you away in case you should try to reach her."
"I--I don't understand," she said a little uncertainly.
"It is simple enough," he said. "Gypsy Nan is now one of those you havemost to fear. Gypsy Nan is merely a disguise. She is no more Gypsy Nanthan you are."
Rhoda Gray caught her breath.
"Not Gypsy Nan!" she repeated--and fought to keep her voice in control."Who is she, then?"
The Adventurer laughed shortly.
"She is quite closely connected with that gentleman we left airinghimself on the fire escape," he said grimly. "Gypsy Nan is Danglar'swife."
It was very strange, very curious--the alleyway seemed suddenly to berevolving around and around, and it seemed to bring her a giddiness anda faintness. The Adventurer was standing there before her, but she didnot see him any more; she could only see, as from a brink upon which shetottered, a gulf, abysmal in its horror, that yawned before her.
"Thank you--thank you for the warning." Was that her voice speakingso calmly and dispassionately? "I will remember it. But I must go now.Good-night again!"
He said something. She did not know what. She only knew that she washurrying along the alleyway now, and that he had made no effort to stopher, and that she was grateful to him for that, and that her composure,strained to the breaking point, would have given away if she hadremained with him another instant. Danglar's wife! It was dark here inthe alley-way, and she did not know where it led to. But did itmatter? And she stumbled as she went along. But it was not the physicalinability to see that made her stumble--it was a brain-blindness thatfogged her soul itself. His wife! Gypsy Nan was Danglar's wife.