Abruptly Clifford stood up and strode to a window and stood gazing vacantly at a huge candy factory across Broome Street--his whole being now wildly athrob, his brain working swiftly though incoherently. What might it not mean, Mary Regan’s showing this concern to see that he accepted the position he had once refused because of her?... And how much did she really care for Morton?... And might there not be motives, deeper and other than he had guessed, that had caused her to treat him so cavalierly?... And the menace of Loveman and of Bradley-- Abruptly Clifford turned about on Thorne. “Chief, I’m sorry to take back my word--but I cannot accept that job as Chief of Detectives.” “Why not?” cried the astounded Thorne. “That I can’t explain just now. But though I can’t take the job, I’ll do all I can in a personal way to help handle that condition you were speaking about. You’ll excuse me, Chief, but I’ve got to do a lot of quick thinking.” Leaving Thorne fairly gasping at this swift transition, Clifford strode out of the office and out of Police Headquarters. Two minutes later he was in a telephone booth in a saloon across the way and was asking the Grantham Hotel, in which he had left Mary Regan an hour before, for “Mrs. Gardner.” Soon Mary’s cool, even voice sounded over the wire. “This is Robert Clifford,” he said. “May I see you again--for just a few minutes?” There was a long silence; then the cool voice queried: “Alone?” “If you please.” Another silence. He was beginning to fear that she had hung up, when the cool voice spoke again. “Very well”--and this time he heard the receiver click upon its hook. He hurried for the Subway. He was athrill with a grim elation. He felt that all that had thus far passed between him and Mary Regan was no more than a prelude--a long prelude, to be sure--and that the big action of their drama lay still before them. He would fight on, still, for Mary Regan--to save her from herself, to protect her from others! But in this, his high moment, he had no prevision of the vagaries of a woman’s nature he was to encounter--of a willful, many-elemented woman who had not yet found herself, and who had a long road yet to travel before she reached that self-knowledge; and he had no prevision of the strange places behind the scenes of pleasure that his new purpose was to cause him to penetrate, and no prevision of the strange motives, the strange mixtures of human nature, that he was to meet. CHAPTER VI MARY SHOWS HER HAND