t, she dared not take the risk that Danglar, by any
chance, might return there--and find her gone after what had just
happened. The man would be beside himself with fury, suspicious of
everything-and suspicion would be fatal in its consequences for her.
And so she must go. And she could not become Gypsy Nan again with the
Adventurer looking on!

"We part here," she said a little unsteadily. "Good-night!"

"Oh, I say, Miss Gray!" he protested quickly. "You don't mean that! Why,
look here, I haven't had a chance to tell you what I think, or what I
feel, about what you've done to-night--for me."

She shook her head.

"There is nothing you need say," she answered quietly. "We are only
quits. You have done quite as much for me."

"But, see here, Miss Gray!" he pleaded. "Can't we come to some
understanding? We seem to have a jolly lot in common. Is it
quite necessary, really necessary, that you should keep me off at
arm's-length? Couldn't you let down the bars just a little? Couldn't
you tell me, for instance, where I could find you in case of--real
necessity?"

She shook her head again.

"No," she said. "It is impossible."

He drew a little closer. A sudden earnestness deepened his voice, made
it rasp a little, as though it were not wholly within control.

"And suppose, Miss Gray, that I refuse to leave you, or to let you go,
now that I have you here, unless you give me more of your confidence?
What then?"

"The other night," she said slowly, "you informed me, among other
things, that you were a gentleman. I believed the other things."

He did not answer for a moment--and then he smiled whimsically.

"You score, Miss Gray," he murmured.

"Good night, then!" she said again. "I will go by the alley here; you by
the street."

"No! Wait!" he said gravely. "If nothing will change your mind--and I
shall not be importunate, for, as we have met three times now through
the same peculiar chain of circumstances, I know we shall meet again--I
have something to tell you, before you go. As you already know, I went
to Gypsy Nan's the night after I first saw you, because I felt you
needed help. I went there in the hope that she would know where to find
you, and, failing in that, I left a message for you in the hope that,
since she had tricked Rorke in your behalf, you would find means of
communicating with her again. But all that is entirely changed now. Your
participation in that Hayden-Bond affair the other night makes G