it
was to be attributed to the reaction from the last few hours--and then,
smiling wanly to herself, she remembered. For two nights she had not
slept. It seemed very strange. That was it, of course, though she was
not in the least sleepy now--just tired, just near the breaking point.

But she must go on. To-night was the end, anyhow. To-night, failing to
keep her appointment as "Bertha," the crash must come; but before it
came, as the White Moll, armed with the knowledge of the crime that had
driven Danglar's wife into hiding, and which was Danglar's crime too,
and with the evidence in the shape of those jewels in her possession,
she and Danglar would meet somewhere--alone. Before the law got him,
when he would be close-mouthed and struggling with all his cunning to
keep the evidence of other crimes from piling up against him and damning
whatever meager chances he might have to escape the penalty for Deemer's
murder, she meant--yes, even if she pretended to compound a felony
with him--to force or to inveigle from him, it mattered little which, a
confession of the authorship and details of the scheme to rob Skarbolov
that night when she, Rhoda Gray, in answer to a dying woman's pleading,
had tried to forestall the plan, and had been caught, apparently, in the
very act of committing the robbery herself! With that confession in her
possession, with the identity of the unknown woman who had died in the
hospital that night established, her own story would be believed.

And so, if she were weary, what did it matter? It was only until
morning. Danglar was at the Silver Sphinx now with the man he meant that
she should help him murder, only--only that plan would fail, because
there would be no "Bertha" to lure the man to his death, and she, Rhoda
Gray, had only to keep track of Danglar until somewhere, where he lived
perhaps, she should have that final scene, that final reckoning with him
alone.

It was a long way to the Silver Sphinx, which she knew, as every one in
the underworld, and every one in New York who was addicted to slumming
knew, was a combination dance-hall and restaurant in the Chatham Square
district. She tried to find a taxi, but with out avail. A clock in a
jeweler's window which she passed showed her that it was ten minutes
after eleven. She had had no idea that it was so late. At eleven,
Danglar had said. Danglar would be growing restive! She took the
elevated. If she could risk the protection of her veil i