l in his duty to
himself--as a gentleman. What other course was open to me? I discovered
a very charming young lady in the grip of a hulking police brute. She
also, apparently, took liberties with the law. There was a bond between
us. I--er--took it upon myself to do what I could. And, besides, I was
not insensible to the fact that I was under a certain obligation to her,
quixotic as it may sound, in view of the fact that we were evidently
competitors after the same game. You see, if she had not forestalled me
and been caught herself, I should most certainly have walked into the
trap that our friend of headquarters had prepared. I--er--as I say, did
what I could. She got away; but somehow Rough Rorke later discovered her
here in this room, I understand that he was not happy over the result;
that, thanks to you, she escaped again, and has not been heard of since."

Rhoda Gray dropped her chin in her grime-smeared hand, staring
speculatively at the other. The man sat there, apparently a
self-confessed crook and criminal, but, also, he sat there as the man
to whom she owed the fact that at the present moment she was not behind
prison bars. He proclaimed himself in the same breath both a thief and
a gentleman, as far as she could make out. They were characteristics
which, until now, she had never associated together; but now, curiously
enough, they did not seem so utterly at variance. Of course they were
at variance, must of necessity be so; but in the personality of this man
the incongruity seemed somehow lost. Perhaps it was a sense of gratitude
toward him that modified her views. He looked a gentleman. There was
something about him that appealed. The gray eyes seemed full of cool,
confident, self-possession; and, quiet as his manner was, she sensed a
latent dynamic something lurking near the surface all the time--that she
was conscious she would much prefer to have enlisted on her behalf than
against her. The strong, firm chin bore this out. He was not handsome,
but--with a sort of mental jerk, she forced her mind back to the stark
realities of her surroundings. She could not thank him for what he had
done last night. She could not tell him that she was the White Moll.
She could only play out the role of Gypsy Nan until--until--Her hand
tightened with a fierce, involuntary pressure upon her chin until it
brought a physical hurt. Until what? God alone knew what the end of this
miserable, impossible horror, in which she fou