I got them. But no mouse, no mastodon could induce me
to hand them over to your friend."

Clo's eyes travelled over his person. He looked slim and soldierly in
his well-made evening clothes. There could be nothing thicker than a
watch, and that a thin one, in his pockets.

"If you would see Mrs. Sands, maybe you'd change your mind," she
pleaded, in her creamiest Irish voice. "Take me back to her, and take
the papers along. Then, if you----"

"I can't do either," was O'Reilly's ultimatum. "I'll take you downstairs
and put you in your car if you've got one, or a taxi if you haven't.
But----"

"You'll have to take me home," said Clo. "I won't try to start without
you. I've gone through enough. I'll just let myself collapse. I promised
not to faint unless you made me. Now you are making me."

"You deserve to be thrown out of the window!"

"I have been, once," the pale girl announced. "It was four storeys up,
and all my ribs were smashed. This is my first day out of bed. I thought
I could manage it, if you were kind. I'd gladly die for Mrs. Sands. And
if I do----"

"Brace up!" O'Reilly cried. "I'll take you home. I know where the house
is. I passed it this afternoon. There was a man who----But no matter.
Have you got a car below?"

Clo was almost past answering; almost, not quite. But weakness was her
"cue," as well as the line of least resistance. Having now an incentive
to let herself go rather than "brace up" as O'Reilly urged, she enjoyed
collapsing. Yet something within was on guard, and knew that O'Reilly
had to be watched.

He dashed to the telephone and ordered a taxi. Then he returned to the
girl in the chair. Her eyes were half shut, a rim of white showing
between the lashes. The man could not help believing the queer story she
had gasped out, about the fall, and the broken ribs, and this being the
first day she had left her bed. That would account for her thinness and
paleness. He touched her hand, which hung over the arm of the chair.
There was no glove on it, and the pathetically small thing was icy cold.

"She's fainted, fast enough," he growled. Clo heard the words dimly, as
though she had cotton wool in her ears. Her duty was to trick the man,
but she didn't like doing that duty.

O'Reilly gently laid down the tiny paw he had taken in his. It was limp
as the hand of a dead girl. Clo would have felt less compunction if he
had dropped it roughly. He took a few brisk steps, as though he had come
t