"I don't know that," said Mr. Effingham, laying his forefinger knowingly alongside his nose. "You see, you're a pretty gal, and you've rather got over me--" "Flattered, I am sure," said Miss Gillespie, showing all her teeth. "No, it ain't that," said he, with a dim perception that his compliment was not too graciously received; "it ain't that; but I do like a pretty girl somehow. Well, you see, they don't let me much into their secrets--don't tell me the reason why I'm told to do so and so; they only tell me to go and do it. But I don't mind tellin' you--taking an interest in you, as I've just said--that, from what they've let drop accidentally, I think you _can_ be of great use to them." "Indeed! have you any notion how?" "Well, now look here. I'm blowin' their gaff to you, and you know what I should get if they knew it; so swear you'll never let on. From what I can make out, there's certain games which you used to do for them that they've never been able to find anybody to come near you in. I mean the Mysterious Lady, the fortune-tellin', and the electro-biology business." Some scenes recalled to her memory by these words seemed to amuse Miss Gillespie, and she laughed heartily. "But that's 'general work,'" continued Mr. Effingham; "what they want you particularly for just now is this. Some swell, so far as I can make out, came to grief early in life, and made a mistake in putting somebody else's name to paper; what they call forgery, you know." She nodded. "Old Lyons has got hold of this paper, and he wants to put the screw on the swell and make him bleed. Now there's none of the lot has half your manner, nor, as they say, half your tact; and that's why, as I believe, is the reason they want you back in town amongst them." "Ah! to--what did you say?--'to put the screw on a swell and make him bleed,' wasn't it? How very nice! Well, now you've obeyed your orders, and it's for me to speak. And suppose--just suppose for the fun of the thing--I were to hold by my original decision and declare I would not come, what would you do?" "I should go back to town and tell 'em all that had passed." "And they?--what would they do?" "I can tell you that, because that was part of my instructions. Old Lyons put that very plain. 'If she rides rusty,' he says,--'and she's got a temper of her own, I can tell you,--just let her know from me that I'll ruin her. I'll never leave her; she knows me of old; it won't be merely,' he says, 'her being turned away in disgrace out of where she is now; but I'll never leave her. She may go where she likes, but I've found her out once, and I'll find her out again; I'll foller her up, and I'll be the ruin of her,' he says, 'so sure's her name's what it is.'"