Dismally he trailed through the door he had left so cheerfully a moment ago. Johnson Boller trailed after him even more dismally, albeit with some grim satisfaction at his altered mien. "We can sit down here and wait now," he stated. "We don't have to do anything more than that, Anthony. We can figure it all out. Either he has had the trunk and Wilkins taken in, or he's just determined that our guilt is cinched. If the former, all creation knows by this time that Dalton's daughter was up to something--queer. If there's a general alarm out for her, they'll recognize her when she comes out of that trunk. On the other hand, if Hitchin has let the trunk go, he's having warrants sworn out by this time and they're dusting off the seats in the nearest patrol-wagon. Either Dalton gets you and probably me, too, or the police get us. That's all that can happen and----" "Stop!" Anthony barked. "I don't care a rap what happens, so long as the girl is not laid open to suspicion, and I don't believe Hitchin or anybody else is going to contrive that, once Wilkins started to deliver the trunk. That is my sole concern now--to shield her!" Having delivered with commendable sentiment, Anthony demonstrated his entire calm by rising with a nervous jerk, by listening, and finally by striding to the door of his apartment, which he opened. Thereafter he stepped back suddenly, for with one searing glance at him a woman had passed. She was in the living-room even now, and smiling horribly at Johnson Boller. She was, in a word, Johnson Boller's wife, and her black eyes snapped more ominously than before. "Don't touch me!" she was saying, as Johnson Boller approached with hands outstretched. "I've come back, but only to tell you!" "To tell me that you've changed your mind, little pigeon?" Johnson Boller cried brokenly. "You're going to let Pudgy-wudgy----" "Faugh!" said the lady, and from her radiated the Spanish grandmother and all the strain implied--blood lust, vengeance! "No, I've come to tell you that I mean to make that woman's name a scandal and a byword from end of town to the other. Not _some_ woman's name, but _the_ woman's name!" "But----" "How can I do it?" laughed the different Mrs. Boller. "I've found out who she is!" CHAPTER XV Thick and Fast However faint the appeal it made to Johnson Boller, Anthony's statement had been the literal truth--his sole concern just now was the shielding of Mary Dalton. More and more, these last calmer minutes, the ghastly aspect of the case as viewed from the woman's side had appealed to him. It is entirely possible that a little real mental suffering had rendered Anthony Fry less selfish and more considerate of the rest of the human race--Johnson Boller always excepted--than he had been for many years. Whatever the cause, the weight of his own guilt was bearing down harder and harder, and he was prepared to go to extreme lengths if necessary in the way of keeping Mary's adventure an eternal secret.