Bravado? Or deadly purpose? How could she tell? Her heart misgave her; she crushed herself away from him as from some abnormally vicious, loathly reptile. He understood this; and regarded her with a confident leer, inscrutably strong and malevolent. "And there is one other reason why you will think twice before making a row," he clinched his case. "If you did that, and I weakly permitted the police to nab and walk us off, the business would get in the papers--your name and all; and--what'd Maitland think of you then, my lady? What'd he think when he read that Dan Anisty had been pinched on Broadway in company with the little woman he'd been making eyes at--whom he was going, in his fine manlike way, to reach down a hand to and yank up out of the gutter and redeem and--and all that slush? Eh?" And again his low evil laugh made her shudder. "Now, you won't risk that. You'll come with me and behave, I guess, all right." She was dumb, stupefied with misery. He turned upon her sharply. "Well?" Her lips moved in soundless assent,--lips as pallid and bloodless as the wan young face beneath the small inconspicuous hat. The man grunted impatiently; yet was satisfied, knowing that he had her now completely under control: a condition not hard to bring about in a woman who, like this, was worn out with physical fatigue and overwrought with nervous strain. The conditions had been favorable, the result was preeminently comfortable. She would give him no more trouble. The hansom swerved suddenly across the car-tracks and pulled up at the curb. Anisty rose with an exclamation of relief and climbed down to the sidewalk, turning and extending a hand to assist the girl. "Come!" he said imperatively. "We've no time to waste." For an instant only she harbored a fugitive thought of resistance; then his eyes met hers and held them, and her mind seemed to go blank under his steadfast and domineering regard. "Come!" he repeated sharply. Trembling, she placed a hand in his and somehow found herself by his side. Regardless of appearances the man retained her hand, merely shifting it beneath his arm, where a firm pressure of the elbow held it as in a vise. "You needn't wait," he said curtly to the cabby; and swung about, the girl by his side. "No nonsense now," he warned her tensely, again thrusting a hand in his breast pocket significantly. "I understand," she breathed faintly, between closed teeth. She had barely time to remark the towering white façade of upper Broadway's tallest sky-scraper ere she was half led, half dragged into the entrance of the building.