smuggling?"

"They'd never do that to a woman...."

But her eyes shifted from his uneasily, and he saw her colour change a
trifle.

"You know better than that. You read the papers--keep informed. You know
what happened to the last woman who tried to smuggle. I forgot how long
they sent her up for--five months, or something like that."

She was silent, her gaze evasive.

"You remember that, don't you?"

"Perhaps I do," she admitted unwillingly.

"And you don't pretend you'd 've faced such a prospect in order to
clear me?"

Again she had no answer for him. He turned up the room to the windows
and back again.

"I didn't think," he said slowly, stopping before her--"I couldn't have
thought you could be so heartless, so self-centred ...!"

She rose suddenly and put a pleading hand upon his arm, standing very
near him in all her loveliness.

"Say thoughtless, Staff," she said quietly; "I didn't mean it."

"That's hard to credit," he replied steadily, "when I'm haunted by the
memory of the lies you told me--to save yourself a few dollars honestly
due the country that has made you a rich woman--to gain for yourself a
few paltry columns of cheap, sensational newspaper advertising. For that
you lied to me and put me in jeopardy of Sing-Sing ... me, the man you
pretend to care for--"

"Hold on, Staff!" the woman interrupted harshly.

He moved away. Her arm dropped back to her side. She eyed him a moment
with eyes hard and unfriendly.

"You've said about enough," she continued.

"You're not prepared to deny that you had these possibilities in mind
when you lied to me and made me your dupe and cat's-paw?"

"I'm not prepared to argue the matter with you," she flung back at him,
"nor to hold myself answerable to you for any thing I may choose to say
or do."

He bowed ceremoniously.

"I think that's all," he said pleasantly.

"It is," she agreed curtly; then in a lighter tone she added: "There
remains for me only to take my blue dishes and go home."

As she spoke she moved over to the corner where the bandbox lay
ingloriously on its undamaged side. As she bent over it, Staff
abstractedly took and lighted another cigarette.

"What made you undo it?" he heard the woman ask.

He swung round in surprise. "I? I haven't touched the thing since it was
brought in--beyond kicking it out of the way."

"The string's off--it's been opened!" Alison's voice was trembling with
excitement. She straightened up, holding