“_Is_ it too late?” he implored, persistently. CHAPTER IV For all the calm precision with which Frances Candler had planned and mapped out a line of prompt action with Durkin, she was shaken and nervous and unstrung, as she leaned over the sounder, breathlessly waiting for the rest of the day’s returns to come through on Penfield’s wire. Durkin, with two thousand dollars of his own and an additional eight hundred from her, had already plunged his limit at Penfield’s lower house, on the strength of her tip over the ’phone. There was still to be one final hazard, with all he held; and at five o’clock they were to meet at Hartley’s restaurant, and from there escape to a new world of freedom and contentment. But the fear of MacNutt still hung over her, as she waited—fear for certain other things besides their secret revolt on the very eve of their chief’s gigantic coup. For she knew what MacNutt could be when he was crossed. So she leaned and waited and watched, listening with parted lips, wishing it was all over with, torn by a thousand indefinite fears. Then, to her sudden terror, Mackenzie called her up sharply. “Is that you, Frank?” he cried. “Yes; what is it, Mack?” she asked back, calmly enough, but with quaking knees. “Doogan’s men are watching me here—they’ve got on to something or other. Cut this wire loose from outside, and get your ’phone out of sight. And, for heaven’s sake, don’t cut in on Penfield’s wire. I’ve just tipped off MacNutt—he’s off his dip, about it all. Look out for yourself, old girl!” he added, in a different tone of voice. She rang off, feverishly, and vowed passionately that she _would_ look out for herself. Catching up a pair of pliers, she cut the telephone wire from the open window, leaving two hundred feet of it to dangle forlornly over the little back house-courts. Then she ran to the door and locked and bolted it, listening all the while for the wire to speak out to her. A minute later MacNutt himself rang up, and asked for Durkin. She made a movement as though to drop the receiver, and leave her presence unbetrayed; but the other had already heard her mellow “Hello?” of inquiry. “What are _you_ doing there?” he demanded, with a startled unsavory oath. She tried to stammer out an adequate excuse, but he repeated his challenge. There was a moment’s pregnant pause. Then he hissed one ugly word over the wire to the listening woman. Mackenzie had been hinting to him of certain things; now, he knew. He did not wait even to replace the receiver. While she still stood there, in the little sewing-room, white and dazed, he was in a swaying taxi, rattling and pounding nearer her, block by block. He let himself in with his own pass-key, and raced up the long stairs, his face drawn, and a dull claret tinge. He found the door closed and bolted; he could hear nothing from within but the muffled clicking of the sounder as it ticked out the later New Orleans returns.