in his ears aroused him, and he saw in the reeling, drunken
shaft of light that blood flowed and joined the ancient stain in the
carpet.

He arose. He knew what that scream would unloose upon them.

Springing backward, he grasped the handle of the safe and opened the
doors.

"Nora," he whispered. "Come here."

She obeyed him with mechanical precision; but when he took the lamp from
her listless hand, turning it upward to examine her face, he read in her
eyes awakening realization and horror.

He snapped off the light. Still grasping her hand, he seated himself on
the floor with his back to the open safe. He drew her down. For a moment
he thought she would resist, then she yielded and sank passively to the
cushion at his side.

"Why?" she asked.

"They will be here," he said. "There is no way out except through that
door which they will use. It is safer to wait here. Why don't they
come?"

"They are careful," she whispered back. "They will come slowly. They
will take no chances."

He felt the quick shaking of her body.

"I know what I have done," she said, "what I have done to you."

He realized that his hand still grasped hers. He released it gently.

"I understand a little," he answered, "but if you cared enough to
accomplish this madness for him, you should have been even less kind to
me than you were this afternoon."

"Perhaps," she answered. "Oh, I don't know. I don't know. I was so
young. I loved him so much, and my father said his murderer would never
be punished--justice must fail. Maybe it was my Italian blood, but I
swore over his body the day they buried him that, if there was no other
way, I would get justice for the poor boy. We were practically certain
it was this gang. I said nothing to my father. Through a girl I had
helped I met Slim. It pleased his vanity to have a spy at headquarters.
I made him trust me. But I couldn't find out who--Yet sooner or later I
knew the time would come. That's why I worked so hard for to-night, why
I wouldn't let anything interfere, because I thought in this room--Well!
You see--Listen!"

She breathed hard for a moment.

"Since I've known you I've doubted, but I couldn't turn back. You
despise me, Jim, but in a way I have done good. I made them respect me.
I have restrained them. I think, because I have been with them, I have
saved lives. And always I had planned at the end to punish them as they
deserved. But now--in a trap. We're like mice in a trap, Ji