to you again. Play her--and send out the call. You understand, don't you? There's never been a yip out of the police. Our methods are too good for that. Look at the Sparrow to-night. Where there's no chance taken of suspicion going anywhere except where we lead it, there's no chance of any trouble--for us! But this cursed she-fiend's another story. We're not planting plum trees for her to pick any more of the fruit. Understand?” She answered him mechanically. “Yes,” she said. “All right, then; that end of it is up to you,” he said significantly. “You're clever, clever as the devil, Bertha. Use your brains now--we need 'em. Good-night, old girl. See you later.” “Good-night,” said Rhoda Gray dully. The door closed. The short, ladder-like steps to the hallway below creaked once, and then all was still. Danglar did have on rubber-soled shoes. She sat upright, her hands, clenched now, pressed hard against her throbbing temples. It wasn't true! None of this was true--this hovel of a place, those jewels glinting like evil eyes in her lap; her existence itself wasn't true; it was only her brain now, sick like her soul, that conjured up these ugly phantoms with horrible, plausible ingenuity. And then an inner voice seemed to answer her with a calmness that was hideous in its finality. It was true. All of it was true. Those words of Danglar, and their bald meaning, were true. Men did such things; men made in the image of their Maker did such things. They were going to kill a man to-night--an innocent man whom they had made their pawn. She swept the jewels from her lap to the blanket, and rising, seized the candle, went to the door, looked out, and, holding the candle high above her head, peered down the stairs. Yes, he was gone. There was no one there. She locked the door again, returned to the bed, set the candle down upon the chair, and stood there, her face white and drawn, staring with wide, tormented eyes about her. Murder. Danglar had spoken of it with inhuman callousness--and had laughed at it. They were going to take a man's life. And there was only herself, already driven to extremity, already with her own back against the wall in an effort to save herself, only herself to carry the burden of the responsibility of doing something-to save a man's life. It seemed to plumb the depths of irony and mockery. She could not make a move as Gypsy Nan. It would only result in their turning upon her, of the discovery that she was not Gypsy Nan at all, of the almost certainty that it would cost her her own life without saving the Sparrow's. That way was closed to her from the start. As the White Moll, then? Outside there in the great city, every plain-clothes man, every policeman on every beat, was staring into every woman's face he met--searching for the White Moll.