I held to her but differently--oh, entirely differently--from my hold of her in that Sencort room. For I knew not only that she’d not been in that scheme, not only that she’d gone there to warn Teverson, as she said, but also I knew she’d nothing to do with that blow on my _medulla oblongata_ at Cheron Street. “Vine’s doing this, I suppose,” I whispered. “Yes.” “He sent me both those telegrams?” “No; only the second; I came on, as I wired you. He grabbed me when I arrived and threw you the second wire. I didn’t see the street till he was through with you.” “What’d he do to you?” “Me? Oh, he was all right about me, then.” “He didn’t hurt you at all?” She knew what I meant and replied, “He did not! Christina saw to that.” “Oh, she’s back with him?” “Umhm. That’s why she saw to it.” “All right,” I said; and kept hold of her. My property, she was; mine. “You’re forgiving me?” I said. “For what?” “Down on Wall Street; and what I did after I’d been hit.” “Oh, that was you, Steve, just you.” Pretty soon, then, I asked her, “What’s Vine’s idea for us now?” You’d have thought I would have asked that the first thing. But question any doctor; inquire how patients act when they know there’s no hope for them. Do they say right away, “What is it, doctor?” They do not; they say, “Lovely weather; and what a view from this window!” Doris was like a doctor in that, when I got around to asking her, she did her stalling, too; but finally she told me, “Well, I guess for us it’s the ‘glass room’.” XX DORIS AND I ARE TAKEN TO IT. When she said “for us,” I got another thrill there in the dark, and right away I got quite the opposite when she said “the glass room.” I had not heard of it before. No; that was the première for the phrase with me; but it was one of those phrases which carry their own connotation; and this was decidedly an uncomfortable one. “What’s the ‘glass room’?” I asked her. “Never mind,” she said, and it was like a mother to a child. You’ve heard something of the sort when a visitor let slip, before the children, a remark about the feature atrocity in the morning paper. “Never mind,” Doris said again to me. “Well, I’m grown,” I said. “And since I’m apparently a candidate for it, why not tell me--unless you prefer to have it come as a complete surprise to me?” “Don’t!” she asked me; and we stood in silence in the dark. “You’ve explored the cavern, I suppose between three and five,” I said, starting up the small talk again. “Yes.” “It runs to solid walls, I take it?” “Very solid.” “Nothing like a trap door in the floor, by any chance?” “Not by any.” “Now a noise would probably be one of the worst advised projects possible, don’t you think?” “It wouldn’t change the end at all,” Doris said, “and would only put us worse off now. They’d tie and gag us--or else let us yell for their amusement.” “Of course some one’s just outside.” “Of course.”