"Fortunately she was an admirer of Bobbie Burr, and I won her confidence and story--Marta's story, which you already know. Things and people had made her put up a bluff of being hardened, but there had come, as you know, the newly awakened desire to 'live straight--like folks who didn't get caught.' To use her own words, 'she wasn't going to let a grand man like _him_ wish himself on such as me.' I felt, then, that thief or no thief, she was the real thing. I only knew one way to get her release and I was rather keen for adventure. We exchanged dress skirts, shoes, hats and coats. I gave her some money, the key to my hotel room, trunk and suitcase and told her to take the next train out while the going was good, and not to show up at the hotel until the night clerk, who had not seen me, came on. I also gave her a letter to some good friends of mine in a town farther west, I knew they would be kind to her, ask no questions and let her stay until she was squared about. "It was done on an impulse--in a flash--one of those kaleidoscopic impulses we have, but back of it was the wish to help some one, and the curiosity to see if her love, aided by the opportunity, would suffice to reform the kind of girl she was supposed to be. "She left the jail in my outer clothes, and I stayed in her shabby garments. Old Bender never suspected the transfer. It would have been very easy for me with my agility gained in screen stunts to have swung out from any part of that old jail, and still easier to have given you the slip en route to Top Hill, but I wanted Marta to have plenty of time to get to a far cover before the mistake was discovered. "Playing a part was second nature to me. I really felt that for the time being I was Marta, but a different Marta from the real one. I always enter into my roles with all my being, so I set the role of a real thief for myself and played up to it so intently that I all but lost my own personality. It was the kind of Marta that Bender supposed her to be who talked to you on that memorable ride to Top Hill. Your wish to be helpful to an unfortunate girl touched me and might have won me to confiding in you, but you were so stern and sometimes so repellant in your manner, I was afraid to trust you. I wasn't sure you would be equal to rising above your chagrin at finding you had been taken in by a 'movie actress' and that you might apprehend poor little Marta.