I took the chair opposite and told her the whole plot and how we’d worked it out. While I was doing it she never said a word, but sat with her profile toward me and her eyes in that blank, motionless stare on the fern plant. When I had finished there was a pause, then suddenly she drew a deep breath, turned toward me and said: "What brought you here to me tonight?" It came so unexpectedly I had no answer ready. What I’d looked for was a scene, terror, maybe hysterics and her breaking away as fast as she could put on her hat. Seeing me stupidly dumb she rose out of her chair, and moved away for a few steps, then stopped and seemed again to fall into that trance of thinking. It was like everything else in this nightmare—different to what I’d looked for, and a sickening thought came to me that maybe she was ready to throw up the sponge and go down and confess. And then—for all I knew—Jack Reddy might persuade her to marry him and go to prison with her. How can you be sure what a man crazy with love will do? If she got a life sentence he’d probably live at the gates of Sing Sing for the rest of his days. I was desperate and went round the table after her. "Say," I implored. "What are you going to do?" "I’m thinking," she muttered. "For God’s sake don’t _think_," I wailed. "Get up and act. If I go back on the people that employ me and come here in the middle of the night to warn you, isn’t it the least you can do to take advantage of it and _go_?" She wheeled round on me, her face all alight with a wonderful beaming look. "_That’s_ the reason," she said. "That’s what made you come—humanity—pity! You’ve risked everything to help me. Oh, you don’t know what you’ve done—what courage you’ve put into me. And you don’t know what my gratitude is." Before I knew it she had seized hold of one of my hands and held it against her heart, with her head bowed over it as if she was praying. Do you guess how _I_ felt? Ashamed?—perishing with it, ready to sink down on the floor and pass away. A murderess no doubt but even if a murderess thinks you did her a good turn when you didn’t it makes you feel like a snake’s a high-class animal beside you. "Oh, come on," I begged. "Let go of me and get out." She dropped my hand and looked at me—Oh, so soft and sweet!—and I saw tears in her eyes. _That_ pretty near finished me and I wailed out: "Don’t stop to cry. You don’t know but what they might get uneasy and come tonight. Put on your things and _go_." Hadn’t I got to hurry her? If Jack made a quick trip he’d be back in town between two and three and he’d come as straight as wheels could take him to her door. "Yes, I’ll go," she said. "Now," I urged, "as soon as you can get into your coat and hat. Don’t bother about this," I pointed to the disorder round us—"They’ll think you’ve had another message from Barker and gone to him." A curious, slight smile came over her face. "Yes," she said, "that’s what they _will_ think, I suppose."