Mary's voice faltered. She understood some things that she had never before understood. "It didn't matter none," she replied. "You couldn't help it." "I daresay I couldn't. I don't know. These things are too much for me. But I do know that I am sorry--sorry from the bottom of my heart. And if I can ever do anything--anything----" He put out his hand, and, as she took it, he raised her hand to his lips. At that instant there was a yell of rage from behind him. Mary, springing back, saw him half turn and reel. She saw a brown, tattooed hand close about his throat, choking his cry of alarm. She saw Bill Stevens's distorted face and red eyes appear above Beekman's shoulder. She saw a knife flash and bury itself deep in the young man's side. And then, with a tremendous smash, both men disappeared down those murderous, black stairs. It seemed to Mary that she lost not a moment in running down to them; yet, when she reached the hall, the little drama was finished. The sailor was lying stunned in a corner, and Big Lou, with the rescued lamp beside her, was kneeling above Philip's body and running her quick claws through his pockets. "Damn your soul, get upstairs!" she cried to Mary. But Mary hesitated. Overhead she heard the skurry of skirts and hurried feet. Before her lay the man that had once so harmed her. His coat had been torn open and a great red smear grew larger and larger upon his white silk shirt. His mouth was twisted, but still. His gray eyes stared at the begrimed ceiling: Philip Beekman was dead. She leaped across the body, tore back the bolts, flung open the door, and nearly fell into the pitch-black street. As she ran around the nearest corner, she heard the cry of Mike, the deckhand, who must have been waiting nearby, and then the sharp alarm-call of a policeman's night-stick. XXX HER FATHER'S HOUSE Her way must have led her first to the river and then well northward: she did not know. She did not even know whether she ran or walked. All that she did know was that, at least for hours to come, she must put as many miles as she could between her own tossing thoughts and that still face with the staring eyes which lay at the foot of the steep, dark stairs in Summerton's. The clocks, had she looked at them, would have told her that the night was gone, but the winter darkness still enveloped the city when she found herself at last standing before an illuminated ticket-window and addressing a sleepy clerk at a ferry. "I want a ticket," she said, and laid down one of the bills that Philip Beekman had given her. "Where to?" yawned the clerk.