the resentment seemed to take a most peculiar phase.
She resented the fact that she should feel resentment, no matter what
the man did or said. It was as though, instead of anger, impersonal
anger, at this low, miserable act of his, she felt ashamed of him. Her
hand clenched fiercely as she crouched there against the wall. It wasn't
true! She felt nothing of the sort! Why should she be ashamed of him?
What was he to her? He was frankly a thief, wasn't he? And he was at his
pitiful calling now--down to the lowest dregs of it. What else did she
expect? Because he had the appearance of a gentleman, was it that her
sense of gratitude for what she owed him had made her, deep down in her
soul, actually cherish the belief that he really was one--made her hope
it, and nourish that hope into belief? Tighter her hand clenched. Her
lips parted, and her breath came in short, hard inhalations. Was it
true? Was it all only an added misery, where it had seemed there could
be none to add to her life in these last few days? Was it true that
there was no price she would not have paid to have found him in any role
but this abased one that he was playing now?

The Adventurer broke the silence.

"Quite so, my dear Mr. Viner!" he agreed smoothly. "It would appear,
then, from what you say that I have been mistaken--even stupidly so, I
am afraid. And in that case, I can only apologize for my intrusion, and,
as you so delicately put it, get out." He slipped the papers, with a
philosophic shrug of his shoulders, into his inside coat pocket, and
took a backward step toward the door. "I bid you good-night, then, Mr.
Viner. The papers, as you state, are doubtless of no value to you, so
you can, of course, have no objection to my handing them over to the
police, who--"

"No, no! Wait! Wait!" the other whispered wildly. "Wait!"

"Ah!" murmured the Adventurer.

"I--I'll"--the bent old figure was clawing at his beard--"I'll--"

"Buy them?" suggested the Adventurer pleasantly.

"Yes, I'll--I'll buy them. I--I've got a little money, only a little,
all I've been able to save in years, a--a hundred dollars.

"How much did you say?" inquired the Adventurer coldly.

"Two hundred." The voice was a maudlin whine.

The Adventurer took another backward step toward the door.

"Three hundred!"

Another step.

"Five--a thousand!"

The Adventurer laughed suddenly.

"That's better!" he said. "Where you keep a thousand, you keep the rest.
Where is t