Glancing at him for the first time, Beryl perceived that he held a slip of yellow paper from which he looked now and then to her face. His features were coarse and heavy, but his eyes were keen as a ferret's; and without answering his question, she turned away and looked across the water which teemed with craft of every description, laden with freight animate and inanimate, passing to and from the vast city, whose spires, domes and forest of masts rose like a gray cloud against the sky, etching there their leaden outlines. "You live at No.--West--Street, between 8th and 9th Avenue?" "You are a stranger, and your questions are offensive and impertinent." As she turned and confronted him haughtily, he stepped closer to her, threw back his blue overcoat, and pointed to the metal badge on his breast. "I am an officer of the law, and have a warrant for your arrest. You are Beryl Brentano." "I am Beryl Brentano, yes; but there is some blunder, some mistake. How dare you annoy me? Arrest me? Me!" "Do not make a scene. My instructions are to deal with you as gently as possible. Better come quietly into the station near, and I will read you the warrant, otherwise I shall be obliged to use force. You see I have two assistants yonder." "Arrested for what? By whom?" "I am ordered to arrest you for the murder of General Darrington." "Murder! General Darrington is alive and well. I have just left him. Stand back! Do not touch me. I will call on the police to protect me." Laying his fingers firmly on her arm, he beckoned to two men clad in police uniform, who promptly approached. "You see resistance is worse than useless, and since there is no escape, come quietly." "You are insulting me, under some frightful mistake. I am a lady. Do I look like a criminal?" "General Darrington has been robbed and murdered, and I have telegraphic orders to arrest and hold a woman named Beryl Brentano, who corresponds in every respect with the description of the person suspected of having committed the crime." Hitherto she had attributed the insult of the interview to some question of mistaken identity, but as she slowly comprehended the possibility that she was the person accused, and intended for arrest, a sickening horror seized and almost paralyzed her, blanching her face and turning her to stone. As he led her along the street, she staggered from the numbness that possessed her, and her eyes stared blankly, like those of a somnambulist. When she had been ushered into a room where several policemen were lounging and smoking, the intolerable sense of shame and indignation shook off her apathy. "This is a cruel and outrageous wrong, and only base cowards could wantonly insult an unprotected and innocent woman. You call yourselves men? Have you no mothers, no sisters, whose memory can arouse some reverence, some respect for womanhood in your brutal souls?"