ad been watching her--before he struck.

"What are you doing here, and what are those clothes you've got in your
hands?" he rasped out.

She could only fence for time in the meager hope that some loophole
would present itself. She forced an assumed defiance into her tones and
manner, that was in keeping with the sort of armed truce, which, from
her first meeting with Danglar, she had inaugurated as a barrier between
them.

"You have asked me two questions," she said tartly. "Which one do you
want me to answer first?"

"Look here," he snapped, "you cut that out! There's one or two things
need explaining--see? What are those clothes?"

Her wits! Perhaps he did not know as much as she was afraid he did! She
seemed to have become abnormally contained, her mind abnormally acute
and active. It was not likely that the woman, his wife, whom he believed
she was, had worn her own clothes in his presence since the day, some
two years ago, when she had adopted the disguise of Gypsy Nan; and she,
Rhoda Gray, remembered that on the night Gypsy Nan, re-assuming her true
personality, had gone to the hospital, the woman's clothes, like these
she held now, had been of dark material. It was not likely that a man
would be able to differentiate between those clothes and the clothes of
the White Moll, especially as the latter hung folded in her hands now,
and even though he had seen them on her at the Silver Sphinx last night.

"What clothes do you suppose they are but my own?--though I haven't had
a chance to wear them much lately!" she countered crisply.

He scowled at her speculatively.

"What are you doing with them out here in this hole, then?" he demanded.

"I had to wear them last night, hadn't I?" she retorted. "I'd have
looked well coming out of Gypsy Nan's garret dressed as myself if
any one had seen me!" She scowled at him in turn. She was beginning to
believe that he had not even an inkling of her identity. Her safest play
was to stake everything on that belief. "Say, what's the matter with
you?" she inquired disdainfully. "I came out here and changed last
night; and I changed into these rags I'm wearing now when I got back
again; and I left my own clothes here because I was expecting to get
word that I could put them on again soon for keeps--though I might have
known from past experience that something would queer the fine promises
you made at Matty's last night! And the reason I'm out here now is
because I left some t