want to get you
out of this house, where I can talk to you alone."

She paused, then shook her head.

"As far as going out with me goes," went on Ronicky, "well, they's
nothing I can say except to ask you to look at me close, lady, and
then ask yourself if I'm the sort of a gent a girl has got anything to
be afraid about. I won't keep you long; five minutes is all I ask. And
we can walk up and down the street, in plain view of the house, if you
want. Is it a go?"

At least he had broken through the surface crust of indifference. She
was looking at him now, with a shade of interest and sympathy, but she
shook her head.

"I'm afraid--" she began.

"Don't refuse right off, without thinking," said Ronicky. "I've worked
pretty hard to get a chance to meet you, face to face. I busted into
this house tonight like a burglar--"

"Oh," cried the girl, "you're the man--Harry Morgan--" She stopped,
aghast.

"He's the man who nearly killed Morgan," said John Mark.

"Is that against me?" asked Ronicky eagerly. "Is that all against me?
I was fighting for the chance to find you and talk to you. Give me
that chance now."

Obviously she could not make up her mind. It had been curious that
this handsome, boyish fellow should come as an emissary from Bill
Gregg. It was more curious still that he should have had the daring
and the strength to beat Harry Morgan.

"What shall I do, Ruth?" she asked suddenly.

Ruth Tolliver glanced apprehensively at John Mark and then flushed,
but she raised her head bravely. "If I were you, Caroline," she said
steadily, "I'd simply ask myself if I could trust Ronicky Doone. Can
you?"

The girl faced Ronicky again, her hands clasped in indecision and
excitement. Certainly, if clean honesty was ever written in the face
of a man, it stood written in the clear-cut features of Ronicky Doone.

"Yes," she said at last, "I'll go. For five minutes--only in the
street--in full view of the house."

There was a hard, deep-throated exclamation from John Mark. He rose
and glided across the room, as if to go and vent his anger elsewhere.
But he checked and controlled himself at the door, then turned.

"You seem to have won, Doone. I congratulate you. When he's talking to
you, Caroline, I want you constantly to remember that--"

"Wait!" cut in Ronicky sharply. "She'll do her own thinking, without
your help."

John Mark bowed with a sardonic smile, but his face was colorless.
Plainly he had been hard