down and grope
along the floor; and then, an instant later, it began to descend the
ladder-like steps--and abruptly Rhoda Gray, too, moved forward. It
wasn't Danglar. That was what had instantly taken hold of her mind, and
she knew a sudden relief now. The man on the stairs--she could see that
it was a man now--though he moved silently, swayed in a grotesquely
jerky way as though he were lame. It wasn't Danglar! She would go to
any length to track Danglar to his lair; but not here--here in the
darkness--here in the garret. Here she was afraid of him with a deadly
fear; here alone with him there would be a thousand chances of exposure
incident to the slightest intimacy he might show the woman whom he
believed to be his wife--a thousand chances here against hardly one in
any other environment or situation. But the man on the stairs wasn't
Danglar.

She halted now and uttered a sharp exclamation, as though she had caught
sight of the man for the first time.

The other, too, had halted--at the foot of the stairs. A plaintive drawl
reached her:

"Don't screech, Bertha! It's only your devoted brother-in-law. Curse
your infernal ladder, and my twisted back!"

Danglar's brother! Bertha! She snatched instantly at the cue with an
inward gasp of thankfulness. She would not make the mistake of using the
vernacular behind which Gypsy Nan sheltered herself. Here was some one
who knew that Gypsy Nan was but a role. But she had to remember that her
voice was slightly hoarse; that her voice, at least, could not sacrifice
its disguise to any one. Danglar had been a little suspicious of it
until she had explained that she was suffering from a cold.

"Oh!" she said calmly. "It's you, is it? And what brought you here?"

"What do you suppose?" he complained irritably. "The same old thing, all
I'm good for--to write out code messages and deliver them like an errand
boy! It's a sweet job, isn't it? How'd you like to be a deformed little
cripple?"

She did not answer at once. The night seemed suddenly to be opening
some strange, even premonitory, vista. The code messages! Their mode of
delivery! Here was the answer!

"Maybe I'd like it better than being Gypsy Nan!" she flung back
significantly.

He laughed out sharply.

"I'd like to trade with you," he said, a quick note of genuine envy
in his voice. "You can pitch away your clothes; I can't pitch away
a crooked spine. And, anyway, after to-night, you'll be living swell
again."