How dared they doubt him? The insolents! The crude brutish insolence of them! Her anger raged high again ... and as swiftly was quenched, extinguished in a twinkling by a terror born of her excitement and a bare suggestion thrown out by Hickey. "... _explainin' how a crook like Anisty made three tries in one day to steal some jewels and didn't get 'em. Where were they, all this time?_" Maitland's cool retort was lost upon her. What matter? If they disbelieved him, persisted in calling him Anisty, in natural course they would undertake to search the flat. And if she were found.... Oh, she must spare him that! She had given him cause for suffering enough. She must get away, and that instantly, before.... From a distance, to-morrow morning,--to-night, even,--by telegraph, she could communicate with him. At this juncture O'Hagan entered with his parcel. The rustle of the paper as he brushed against the door-jamb was in itself a hint to a mind keyed to the highest pitch of excitement and seeking a way of escape from a position conceived to be perilous. In a trice the girl had turned and sped, lightfooted, to the door opening on the private hall. Here, halting for a brief reconnaissance, she determined that her plan was feasible, if hazardous. She ran the risk of encountering some one ascending the stairs from the ground floor; but if she were cautious and quick she could turn back in time. On the other hand, the men whom she most feared were thoroughly occupied with their differences, dead to all save that which was happening within the room's four walls. A curtain hung perhaps a third of the way across the study door, tempering the light in the hall; and the broad shoulders of the cabby obstructed the remainder of the opening. It was a chance. She poised herself on tiptoe, half undecided, and--the rustling of paper as O'Hagan opened the parcel afforded her an opportunity to escape, by drowning the noise of her movements. For two eternal seconds she was edging stealthily down toward the outer door; then, in no time at all, found herself on the landing and--confronted by a fresh complication, one unforeseen: how to leave the house without being observed, stopped, and perhaps detained until too late? There would be men at the door, beyond doubt; possibly police, stationed there to arrest all persons attempting to leave.... No time for weighing chances. The choice of two alternatives lay before her: either to return to the alcove or to seek safety in the darkness of the upper floors--untenanted, as she had been at pains to determine. The latter seemed by far the better, the less dangerous, course to pursue. And at once she took it.