, and everything for
which he stood!

By this time they had threaded their way out of the tangled traffic of
West street, and were rumbling cityward through the narrower streets of
Greenwich village.

Frank's first intelligible feeling was one of gratitude at the thought
that Durkin had escaped the trap into which she herself had fallen.
That did not leave the situation quite so hopeless. Her second feeling
was one of fear that he might be following her, then one that he might
not, that he would not be near her in the coming moment of need--for
she knew that now of all times MacNutt held her in the hollow of his
hand--that now, as never before, he would frustrate and crush and
obliterate her. There were old transgressions to be paid for; there
were old scores to be wiped out. Keenan and his Penfield wealth were
nothing to her now--she was no longer plotting for the future, but
shrinking away from her dark and toppling present, that seemed about to
buckle like a falling wall and crush her as it fell. Month after
month, in Europe, she had known visions of some such meeting as this,
through nightmare and troubled sleep. And now it was upon her.

MacNutt seemed to follow her line of flashing thought, for he emitted a
short bark of a laugh and said: "It's pretty small, this world, isn't
it? I guessed that we'd be meetin' again before I'd swung round the
circle!"

"Where are we going?" she demanded, trying to lash her disordered and
straggling thoughts into coherence.

"We're goin' to the neatest and completest poolroom in all Manhattan!"

"Poolroom?" she cried.

"Yes, my dear; I mean that we're drivin' to Penfield's brand-new
downtown house, where, as somewhat of a hiker in the past, you'll see
things done in a mighty whole-souled and princely fashion!"

"But why should I go there? And why with you?"

"Oh, I'm on Penfield's list, just at present, kind o' helpin' to soothe
some of the city police out o' their reform tantrums. And you've got
about a quarter of a million of Penfield's securities on you--so I
thought I'd kind o' keep an eye on you--this time!"

Her first impulse was to throw herself headlong from the cab door. But
this, she warned herself, would be both useless and dangerous. Through
the curtained window she could see that they were now in the more
populous districts of the city, and that the speed at which they were
careering down the empty car-tracks was causing early morning
foot-passen