reviewed the case succinctly for the other's enlightenment.

"Yes, it's the same game precisely," she affirmed. "A shameless old roue
makes love to you, and he writes you a stack of silly letters."

The pouting lips of the listener took on a pathetic droop, and her voice
quivered as she spoke with an effective semblance of virginal terror.

"He might have ruined my life!"

Mary continued without giving much attention to these histrionics.

"If you had asked him for all this money for the return of his letters,
it would have been blackmail, and we'd have gone to jail in all human
probability. But we did no such thing--no, indeed! What we did wasn't
anything like that in the eyes of the law. What we did was merely to
have your lawyer take steps toward a suit for damages for breach of
promise of marriage for the sum of ten thousand dollars. Then, his
lawyer appears in behalf of General Hastings, and there follow a
number of conferences between the legal representatives of the opposing
parties. By means of these conferences, the two legal gentlemen run up
very respectable bills of expenses. In the end, we get our ten thousand
dollars, and the flighty old General gets back his letters.... My dear,"
Mary concluded vaingloriously, "we're inside the law, and so we're
perfectly safe. And there you are!"

CHAPTER XI. THE THIEF.

Mary remained in joyous spirits after her victorious matching of brains
against a lawyer of high standing in his profession. For the time being,
conscience was muted by gratified ambition. Her thoughts just then were
far from the miseries of the past, with their evil train of consequences
in the present. But that past was soon to be recalled to her with a
vividness most terrible.

She had entered the telephone-booth, which she had caused to be
installed out of an extra closet of her bedroom for the sake of greater
privacy on occasion, and it was during her absence from the drawing-room
that Garson again came into the apartment, seeking her. On being told
by Aggie as to Mary's whereabouts, he sat down to await her return,
listening without much interest to the chatter of the adventuress.... It
was just then that the maid appeared.

"There's a girl wants to see Miss Turner," she explained.

The irrepressible Aggie put on her most finically elegant air.

"Has she a card?" she inquired haughtily, while the maid tittered
appreciation.

"No," was the answer. "But she says it's important. I gu