last. I have known it from the first."

"Someone will open the door," he replied. "We may have to stay here quite
a while, but----"

"No, my friend. There is no likelihood that it will be opened. The clerks
are leaving for the night."

He was silent.

"So finish the story," she went on.

"Finish the story!" That was all that he could do.

"Finish the story!" His story and hers--only just begun, and now to end
there in the dark.

But with a calmness as great as her own, he proceeded to tell all that
had happened to him since he boarded the electric-car at Evanston and saw
Maku sitting within. She pressed his hand gently when he described the
trick by which the Japanese had brought the pursuit to an end. She
laughed when he came to his meeting with the detective in his apartment.
The episode with Madame Alia he passed over lightly, for part of it
rankled now. Not that he blamed himself foolishly but he wished that it
had not happened.

"That woman did a fine thing," said the girl.

He went on to describe his efforts to get free from Alcatrante.

"And you were under the table in Arima's room," she exclaimed, when he
had finished.

"I was there; but I couldn't see you, Girl. And you seemed to doubt me."

"To doubt you?"

"Don't you remember? You said that no American had the papers; but you
added, unless----"

"Unless Walsh, the burglar, had played a trick on Poritol and held the
true papers back. I went straight from Arima's to the jail and had
another talk with Walsh. He convinced me that he knew nothing at all
about the papers. He seemed to think that they were letters which Poritol
wanted for his own purposes."

"Then, you did not doubt me." Glad relief was in his voice.

"I have never doubted you," she said, simply.

There was silence. Only their breathing and the ticking of Orme's watch
broke the stillness.

"I don't believe that Alcatrante knew that this place was unventilated,"
she remarked at last.

"No; and he didn't know that you were here."

"He thinks that you will be released in the morning, and that you will
think it wiser to make no charges. What do you suppose his conscience
will say when he learns----"

"Girl, I simply can't believe that there is no hope for us."

"What possible chance is there?" Her voice was steady. "The clerks must
all have gone by this time. We can't make ourselves heard."

"Still, I feel as though I should be fighting with the door."

"You can't open it