The Pug had disappeared in the darkness. Pinkie was
closing, and evidently fastening, the trap-door.

"The other way, Nan!" he flung out, as she started to run. "That takes
you to the other street, an' they can't get around that way without
goin' around the whole block. Me for a fence I knows about, an' we gives
'em the merry laugh! Go on!"

She ran--ran breathlessly, stumbling, half falling, her hands stretched
out before her to serve almost in lieu of eyes, for she could make out
scarcely anything in front of her. She emerged upon a street. It seemed
abnormal, the quiet, the lack of commotion, the laughter, the unconcern
in the voices of the passers-by among whom she suddenly found herself.
She hurried from the neighborhood.

XIII. THE DOOR ACROSS THE HALL

It was many blocks away before calmness came again to Rhoda Gray,
and before it seemed, even, that her brain would resume its normal
functions; but with the numbed horror once gone, there came in its
place, like some surging tide, a fierce virility that would not be
denied. The money! The old couple on that doorstep, stripped of their
all! Wasn't that one reason why she had gone on with Pinkie Bonn and
the Pug? Hadn't she seen a way, or at least a chance, to get that money
back?

Rhoda Gray looked quickly about her. On the corner ahead she saw a drug
store, and started briskly in that direction. Yes, there was a way! The
idea had first come to her from the Pug's remark to Shluker that, after
they had secured the money, Pinkie would return with it to the Pug's
room, while the Pug would go and square things with Danglar. And also,
at the same time, that same remark of the Pug's had given rise to a
hope that she might yet trace Danglar to night through the Pug--but the
circumstances and happenings of the last few minutes had shattered that
hope utterly. And so there remained the money. And, as she had walked
with Pinkie and the Pug a little while ago, knowing that Pinkie would,
if they were successful, carry the money back to the Pug's room, just
as was being done now precisely in accordance with the Pug's original
intentions, she had thought of the Adventurer. It had seemed the only
way then; it seemed the only way now--despite the fact that she would be
hard put to it to answer the Adventurer if he thought to ask her how, or
by what means, she was in possession of the information that enabled
her to communicate with him. But she must risk that--put him o