suddenly on both
her elbows, the dark eyes staring wildly. "Yes, yes!" she whispered.
"Seven-three-nine! Look out!" Her voice rang with sudden terror, rising
almost to a scream. "Look out! Can't you understand, you fool! I've told
you! Seven-three-nine! Seven-three..."

Rhoda Gray's arms had gone around the other's shoulders. She heard the
door open-and then a quick, light step. There wasn't any other sound
now. She made way mechanically for the nurse. And then, after a moment,
she rose from her knees. The nurse answered her unspoken question.

"Yes; it's over."

III. ALIAS GYPSY NAN

Rhoda Gray went slowly from the room. In a curiously stunned sort of
way she reached the street, and for a few blocks walked along scarcely
conscious of the direction she was taking. Her mind was in turmoil. The
night seemed to have been one of harrowing hallucination; it seemed as
though it were utterly unreal, like one dreaming that one is dreaming.
And then, suddenly, she looked at her watch, and the straight little
shoulders squared resolutely back. The hallucination, if she chose to
call it that, was not yet over! It was twenty minutes of one, and there
was still Skarbolov's--and her promise.

She quickened her pace. She did not like this promise that she had
made; but, on the other hand, she had not made it either lightly or
impulsively. She had no regrets on that score. She would make it again
under the same conditions. How could she have done otherwise? It would
have been to stand aside and permit a crime to be committed which she
was assured was easily within her power to prevent. What excuse could
she have had for that? Fear wasn't an excuse. She did not like the
thought of entering the back door of a store in the middle of the night
like a thief, and, like a thief, taking away that hidden money. She knew
she was going to be afraid, horribly afraid--it frightened her now--but
she could not let that fear make a moral coward of her.

Her hands clenched at her sides. She would not allow herself to dwell
upon that phase of it! She was going to Skarbolov's, and that was all
there was to it. The only thing she really had to fear was that she
should lose even a single unnecessary moment in getting there. Halfpast
one, Gypsy Nan had said. That should give her ample time; but the
quicker she went, the wider the margin of safety.

Her thoughts reverted to Gypsy Nan. What had the woman meant by her last
few wandering words? Th