l her boasts. In her hot
little heart Clo prayed for the wisdom of the serpent, and as her elfin
face took on anxious lines, she became more interesting to O'Reilly. Her
white face looked pinched and desperate. "If I were Marat, and she
Charlotte Corday," was the thought that jumped into his head, "she would
stab me."

"It's a good thing for me you have a cousin, or maybe you wouldn't have
let me in. I know now why God gave me the name of Riley. I guess he'll
forgive me for borrowing the 'O.' I was obliged to get to you somehow.
That was the one way I could think of."

"It was a pretty smart way," O'Reilly flattered her. "But you haven't
told me----"

"I will. Only--I think I'll have to sit down. I feel rather--queer----"

"Good lord! You can't faint here!"

"I won't, unless you make me, I'll promise that!" She had her cue now.

"Sit down, for heaven's sake!" said O'Reilly, pulling up the biggest
chair in the room. Clo sank into it. Closing her eyes, she drew in a
gasping breath which made her girlish bosom heave.

The man stood by, feeling absurdly helpless.

"Shall I ring for brandy?" he suggested.

"No--please!" She opened her great eyes again. "Only listen. I've come
from Mrs. Roger Sands--to beg you for those papers of hers."

"Mrs. Roger Sands! Her papers? I know nothing of any papers belonging to
Mrs. Roger Sands," O'Reilly exclaimed. "What papers are you talking
about?"

"The ones you hired a man to steal when the train got to Chicago."

O'Reilly started. "Whose accusation is that?" he asked sharply.

"Not hers; it's mine."

"Yours! Once again, who are you? What are you in this?"

"I'm nobody! I'm only--a lion's mouse."

O'Reilly did not ask what it meant to be a lion's mouse. He understood.
His mind was not less quick than hers.

"And I'm the net you hope to gnaw! Miss Mouse, your little teeth will
find me tough. I may say I'm a patent, ungnawable net. The best thing
for you is to go home as fast as you can and tell those who sent
you----"

"I sent myself," Clo explained, with tired obstinacy. "I told you I had
to see you somehow. Oh, Mr. O'Reilly, you don't look the sort of cruel
pig I thought you would be. If you dreamed what Mrs. Sands is going
through you'd give her back the papers. Don't pretend not to know what I
mean."

"I won't pretend anything," O'Reilly said. "I do know what you mean, and
I got the documents (which were not the property of Mrs. Sands) more or
less as you think