"How?" she asked simply, leaning forward over the table.

There was no resisting her. Quickly he told her all.

"At first with what little money of my own I had I played. Then I began
to sign I O U's and notes. Now I have been taking blank stock
certificates, some of those held as treasury stock in the company's
safe. They have never been issued, so that by writing in the signatures
of myself and the other officers necessary, I have been able to use it
to pay off my losses in gambling."

As he unfolded to her the plan which he had adopted, Constance listened
in amazement.

"And you know that you are watched," she repeated, changing the
subject, and sensing rather than seeing that Drummond was watching them
then.

"Yes," he continued freely. "The International Surety, in which I'm
bonded, has a sort of secret service of its own, I understand. It is
the eye that is never closed, but is screened from the man under bond.
When you go into the Broadway night life too often, for instance," he
pursued, waving his hand about at the gay tables, "run around in fast
motors with faster company--well, they know it. Who is watching, I do
not know. But with me it will be as it has been when others came to the
end. Some day they will come to me, and they are going to say, 'We
don't like your conduct. Where do you get this money?' They will know,
then, too. But before that time comes I want to win, to be in a
position to tell them to go--"

Halsey clenched his fist. It was evident that he did not intend to
quit, no matter what the odds against him.

Constance thought of the silent figure of Drummond at the other
table--watching, watching. She felt sure that it was to him that the
Surety Company had turned over the work of shadowing Halsey. Day after
day, probably, the unobtrusive detective had been trailing Halsey from
the moment he left his apartment until the time when he returned, if he
did return. There was nothing of his goings and comings that was not
already an open book to them. Of what use was it, then, for Halsey to
fight!

It was a situation such as she delighted in. She had made up her mind.
She would help Haddon Halsey to beat the law.

Already it seemed as if he knew that their positions had been reversed.
He had started to warn her; she now was saving him.

Yet even then he showed the better side of his nature.

"There is some one else, Mrs. Dunlap," he remarked earnestly, "who
needs your help even more than