Ottenheimer and the doubtful-minded sergeant disappeared into the gloom of the midnight store. As the whole floor flowered into sudden electric luminousness, Durkin thanked his stars that he had had sense enough to leave the lighting wires intact. “Everything’s all right; you may go, miss,” said the sergeant, two minutes later. “I guess old Isaac’s had an early nightmare!” And the dispersing crowd laughed sympathetically. The woman stepped into the motor-cab, and turned toward Broadway. Safely round the corner, she picked up the waiting Durkin. “That was a close one—but we win!” he murmured jubilantly. “You’ve got it?” “I’ve got it,” he exulted. The woman at his side, for some vague reason, could not share in his joy. Intuitively, in that moment of exhaustion, she felt that their triumph, at the most, was a mere conspiracy of indifference on the part of a timeless and relentless destiny. And in the darkness of the carriage she put her ineffectual arms about Durkin, passionately, as though such momentary guardianship might shield him for all time to come. She shook her abstractedness from her, with a long and fluttering sigh. “Jim,” she asked him, unexpectedly, “how much money have you?” He told her, as nearly as he could. “It’s hanged little, you see!” he added, not understanding the new anxiety that was eating at her heart,—“but I’ve been thinking of a plan!” “Oh, what now?” she asked miserably, out of her weariness. She knew, well enough, the necessity of keeping up, of maintaining both activity and appearances. She knew that wrong-doing such as theirs, when without even its mockery of respectability and its ironical touch of dignity, was loathsome to both the eye and the soul. But she found that there were moods and times, occurring now more and more frequently, when she dreaded each return to that subterranean and fear-haunted world. She dreaded it now, not so much for herself, as for Durkin; and as he briefly told her of his plan, this feeling grew stronger within her. “Then if it must be done,” she cried, “let _me_ do the worst part of it!” He looked at her, puzzled, not comprehending the source of her passionate cry, blindly wondering if her over-adventurous life was not getting a deeper and deeper hold on her. But her next question put him to shame. “Jim, if I help you in this, if I do all that has to be done, will you promise me that you will make it bring you closer to your work on your amplifier, and your transmitting camera? Can’t you promise to get back to that decent work once more?” “I’ll promise, if you’ll make me one promise in return,” said Durkin, after a moment of silent thought. “What is it?” she asked. “Will you let me hold over this Singford stone, for a few weeks?” “But why?” she asked, aghast. “To oil the curtain that has to go up on our next act!” he answered, grimly. “I mean a few hundred, now, would make things so simple again.”