Helen's fingers trembled as she reached into her hand bag for the roll of bills. "Even if I give you the thousand dollars, I suppose I'll always be at your mercy--that you'll always be coming back for more, that you'll hound me, blackmail me----" Haskins made no promises as to that; he grabbed the money avidly from her hand and counted it eagerly. Ten dollars lacking two hundred. "When do I get the rest of it?" he demanded. "I can't wait long; it won't be safe--stayin' here with Eighth Avenue Annie." Helen considered swiftly. "This--this is Monday," she said. "I may be able to get it by Wednesday. If I can get it at all I suppose I can get it by then. You--you'll give me until Wednesday?" "Ain't got no jewelry that you can put in soak to raise the jack?" Don wanted to know. "He--he would miss that, what little there is. I'd better try to get the money from him--if I can." Haskins' lips twisted unpleasantly. "You better," he grunted threateningly. "Aw right, I'm givin' you until Wednesday, but if you ain't come across with it by then, I'll saunter out to that swell place I hear you're livin' in--and collect." CHAPTER IV "WHAT DOES IT MEAN?" Returning from New York on the five o'clock train, Kirklan Gilmore stood for a minute or so on the station platform, looking along the assembled line of cars in which thoughtful wives were meeting their city-working husbands. He felt disappointed and hurt that Helen had not come for him, especially as this was his first absence. Then it occurred to him that she might not have returned from her drive across the river; the country roads might have lured her farther than her announced destination of Tuxedo. A worried frown appeared over his eyes, as his imagination led him to take the unpleasant possibility that, since Helen was new at the steering wheel, there might have been an accident. A horrifying picture of a collision, his beautiful wife maimed, cut, bleeding, arose before him, but he brushed it aside with a shudder. "I suppose all doting husbands do a lot of unnecessary worrying," he told himself. "I couldn't stand losing her." Gilmore did not for a moment believe that it had been Helen whom Atchinson had seen on the street in New York; he considered it a bit of a joke on the publisher and intended having a good laugh by teasing his wife about her "double." The village of Ardleigh is small, and, since it is surrounded with people owning their country homes and their own cars, there is small demand for taxicab service. There were just three of the ramshackle vehicles, but Gilmore delayed so long that the last one was occupied and started in motion, as he crossed the platform toward it.