ftly across the little room. Was it not
stranger than words could tell that such a man as John Mark should be
sitting in this almost public place and pouring his soul out into the
ear of a girl?

"I shall tell you," said Mark, his voice softening. "I have contributed
half of it to charity."

Her lips, compressed with doubt, parted in wonder. "Charity!" she
exclaimed.

"And the other half," he went on, "I deposited in a bank to the credit
of a fictitious personality. That fictitious personality is, in flesh
and blood, Ruth Tolliver with a new name. You understand? I have only to
hand you the bank book with the list of deposits, and you can step out
of this Tolliver personality and appear in a new part of the world as
another being. Do you see what it means? If, at the last, you find you
cannot marry me, my dear, you are provided for. Not out of my charity,
which would be bitter to you, but out of your own earnings. And, lest
you should be horrified at the thought of living on your earnings at the
gaming table, I have thrown bread on the waters, dear Ruth. For every
dollar you have in the bank you have given another to charity, and both,
I hope, have borne interest for you!"

His smile faded a little, as she murmured, with her glance going past
him: "Then I am free? Free, John?"

"Whenever you wish!"

"Not that I ever shall wish, but to know that I am not chained, that is
the wonderful thing." She looked directly at him again: "I never dreamed
there was so much fineness in you, John Mark, I never dreamed it, but I
should have!"

"Now I have been winning Caroline to the game," he went on, "and she is
beginning to love it. In another year, or six months, trust me to have
completely filled her with the fever. But now enters the mischief-maker
in the piece, a stranger, an ignorant outsider. This incredible man
arrives and, in a few days, having miraculously run Caroline to earth,
goes on and brings Caroline face to face with her lover, teaches Jerry
Smith that I am his worst enemy, gets enough money to pay off his debt
to me, and convinces him that I can never use my knowledge of his crime
to jail him, because I don't dare bring the police too close to my own
rather explosive record."

"I saw them both here!" said the girl. She wondered how much he guessed,
and she saw his keen eyes probe her with a glance. But her
ingenuousness, if it did not disarm him, at least dulled the edge of his
suspicions.

"He was here,