"That's what they all say. Well, if you can prove it--if you ain't got any record of previous complaints standin' agin' you, and your finger prints don't give you away--you'll get off pretty light, maybe, but not with a fine. I guess the magistrate'll give you a bit over on the Island--maybe thirty days, maybe sixty. Depends on how he's feelin' to-night." "The Island?" "Sure, Blackwell's Island. A month over there won't do you no harm." "I cannot--you must not take me," she broke out passionately now. "For thirty days? Oh, no, no, m'sieur!" "Oh, yes, yes, yes!" He was mimicking her tone. "I guess you can stand doin' your thirty days if the rest of these cruisers can. If you should turn out to be an old offender it'd likely be six months----" He did not finish the sentence. With a quick, hard jerk she broke away from him and turned and ran back the way she had come. She dropped her handbag and her foot spurned it into the gutter. She ran straight, her head down, like a hunted thing sorely pressed. Her snug skirt hampered her though. With long strides the detective overtook her. She fought him off silently, desperately, with both hands, with all her strength. He had to be rough with her--but no rougher than the emergency warranted. He pressed her flat up against a building and, holding her fast there with the pressure of his left arm across her throat, he got his nippers out of his pocket. Another second or two more of confused movement and he had her helpless. The little steel curb was twined tight about her right wrist below the rumpled white cuff. By a twist of the handles which he held gripped in his palm he could break the skin. Two twists would dislocate the wrist bone. A strong man doesn't fight long after the links of the nippers start biting into his flesh. "Now, then," he grunted triumphantly, jerking her out alongside him, "I guess you'll trot along without balkin'. I was goin' to treat you nice but you wouldn't behave, would you? Come on now and be good." He glanced backward over his shoulder. Three or four men and boys, witnesses to the flight and to the recapture, were tagging along behind them. "Beat it, you," he ordered. Then as they hesitated: "Beat it now, or I'll be runnin' somebody else in." They fell back, following at a safer distance. He had led his prisoner along for almost a block before he was moved to address her again: "And you thought you could make your getaway from me? Not a chance! Say, what do you want to act that way for, makin' it harder for both of us? Say, on the level now, ain't you never been pinched before?" She thought he meant the pressure of the steel links on her wrist. "It is not that," she said, bending the curbed hand upward. "That I do not think of. It is of my sister, my sister Helene, that I think." Her voice for the first time broke and shivered. "What about your sister?" There was something of curiosity but more of incredulity in his question.