stopping of the carriage roused her. Looking up, she spoke for the
first time.

"I want a police officer," she said.

Mr. Gryce, with all his assurance restored, leaped to the ground and
held out his hand.

"I will take you into the presence of one," said he; and she, without a
glance at Mr. Van Burnam, whose knee she brushed in passing, leaped to
the ground, and turned her face towards Police Headquarters.

XXXVII.

"TWO WEEKS!"

But before she was well in, her countenance changed.

"No," said she, "I want to think first. Give me time to think. I dare
not say a word without thinking."

"Truth needs no consideration. If you wish to denounce this man----"

Her look said she did.

"Then now is the time."

She gave him a sharp glance; the first she had bestowed upon him since
leaving Miss Althorpe's.

"You are no doctor," she declared. "Are you a police-officer?"

"I am a detective."

"Oh!" and she hesitated for a moment, shrinking from him with very
natural distrust and aversion. "I have been in the toils then without
knowing it; no wonder I am caught. But I am no criminal, sir; and if you
are the one most in authority here, I beg the privilege of a few words
with you before I am put into confinement."

"I will take you before the Superintendent," said Mr. Gryce. "But do you
wish to go alone? Shall not Mr. Van Burnam accompany you?"

"Mr. Van Burnam?"

"Is it not he you wish to denounce?"

"I do not wish to denounce any one to-day."

"What do you wish?" asked Mr. Gryce.

"Let me see the man who has power to hold me here or let me go, and I
will tell him."

"Very well," said Mr. Gryce, and led her into the presence of the
Superintendent.

She was at this moment quite a different person from what she had been
in the carriage. All that was girlish in her aspect or appealing in her
bearing had faded away, evidently forever, and left in its place
something at once so desperate and so deadly, that she seemed not only a
woman but one of a very determined and dangerous nature. Her manner,
however, was quiet, and it was only in her eye that one could see how
near she was to frenzy.

She spoke before the Superintendent could address her.

"Sir," said she, "I have been brought here on account of a fearful crime
I was unhappy enough to witness. I myself am innocent of that crime,
but, so far as I know, there is no other person living save the guilty
man who committed it, who can tell you how o