"I'm not conscious of fear," laughed O'Reilly. He couldn't help laughing. He didn't believe the girl's name was the "same as his." "If I'm not afraid, I am curious," he confessed. "What are you going to beg for, if not money? Is this a message from my cousin----?" Clo ceased suddenly to be impish. She had got into the enemy's fastness by her impishness, but she could go no further on that line. This man, being the exact opposite of the type expected, upset her plan. A big danger was that she might like this O'Reilly instead of hating him, he was so pleasant and gallant-looking, more a protector than a persecutor of women. She might hesitate to cheat or trick him in whatever way came handy, and thus fail the Angel on top of all her boasts. In her hot little heart Clo prayed for the wisdom of the serpent, and as her elfin face took on anxious lines, she became more interesting to O'Reilly. Her white face looked pinched and desperate. "If I were Marat, and she Charlotte Corday," was the thought that jumped into his head, "she would stab me." "It's a good thing for me you have a cousin, or maybe you wouldn't have let me in. I know now why God gave me the name of Riley. I guess he'll forgive me for borrowing the 'O.' I was obliged to get to you somehow. That was the one way I could think of." "It was a pretty smart way," O'Reilly flattered her. "But you haven't told me----" "I will. Only--I think I'll have to sit down. I feel rather--queer----" "Good lord! You can't faint here!" "I won't, unless you make me, I'll promise that!" She had her cue now. "Sit down, for heaven's sake!" said O'Reilly, pulling up the biggest chair in the room. Clo sank into it. Closing her eyes, she drew in a gasping breath which made her girlish bosom heave. The man stood by, feeling absurdly helpless. "Shall I ring for brandy?" he suggested. "No--please!" She opened her great eyes again. "Only listen. I've come from Mrs. Roger Sands--to beg you for those papers of hers." "Mrs. Roger Sands! Her papers? I know nothing of any papers belonging to Mrs. Roger Sands," O'Reilly exclaimed. "What papers are you talking about?" "The ones you hired a man to steal when the train got to Chicago." O'Reilly started. "Whose accusation is that?" he asked sharply. "Not hers; it's mine." "Yours! Once again, who are you? What are you in this?" "I'm nobody! I'm only--a lion's mouse." O'Reilly did not ask what it meant to be a lion's mouse. He understood. His mind was not less quick than hers. "And I'm the net you hope to gnaw! Miss Mouse, your little teeth will find me tough. I may say I'm a patent, ungnawable net. The best thing for you is to go home as fast as you can and tell those who sent you----"