n might be in New York. It was with a palpably forced
laugh that he ejaculated:

"Travers Gladwin! Oh, he did, eh?"

The girl had read more than he imagined the sudden contraction of his
features and dilation of his eyes had revealed.

"I want you to tell me the truth--you must!" she said passionately.
"_Who are you?_"

"A man who loves you," he let go impulsively. The desire to possess
her had sprung uppermost in his mind again.

"But are you the man you pretended to be--are you Travers Gladwin?"
she insisted, compelled against her convictions to grope for a forlorn
hope.

"And if I were not?" he cried, with all the dramatic intensity he
could bring to voice. "If instead of being the son of a millionaire, a
pampered molly-coddle who never earned a dollar in his life--suppose I
were a man who had to fight every inch of the way"----

He stopped. His alert ear had caught a sound in the hallway. He sped
noiselessly to the folding door and forced one back, revealing Officer
Murphy.

"Come in," he said threateningly, and Gladwin came in a little way.

"Where's that bag?" said the thief, with a glare and a suggestive
movement with his hands.

"What bag, sorr?" said Gladwin, feeling that for the moment discretion
was the better part of valor.

"The one you brought in here."

"You told me to unpack it, sorr. It's upstairs, sorr."

"Go and get it. Go now--and don't waste time."

Gladwin went, determined this time that he must arm himself with some
weapon, even if it were one of the rusted old bowie knives of his
grandfather that ornamented the wall of his den. He estimated
accurately that he would prove a poor weak reed in the hands of that
Hercules in evening dress, and while the thought of a knife sickened
him, he was impelled to seek one.

As he mounted the stairs the thief strode to the table near the window
and gathered up Helen's opera cloak and handed it to her.

"Now, go quickly," he urged; "my car is just across the street. There
is no time to argue your absurd suspicions."

"No, I shan't go," retorted Helen, accepting the cloak and backing
away.

"So you believe that man?" he asked reproachfully.

"I am afraid I do," she said firmly.

"Then I'll show you mighty quick you're wrong," he cried, as a
crowning bluff. "He's probably some spy sent by your aunt. I'll get my
man in here and will have him arrested after you and I have gone. Wait
here--I shan't be a moment."

As the door slammed after