d come of her own volition, relying upon him, had
held him in honour to let her go as she had come--without looking upon
her face! Exquisite irony! But she had made him a promise then--that the
work of the Gray Seal was nearly over--that soon there would be an end
to the mystery that surrounded her--that he should know all--that he
should know HER.

He smiled again, but it was a twisted smile on the mechanically
misshapen lips of Larry the Bat. NEARLY over! Who knew? That "nearly"
might be too late! Even tonight he had been shadowed, was skulking even
now in this place as a refuge. Who knew? Another hour, and the newsboys
might be shrieking their "Uxtra! Uxtra! De Gray Seal caught! De
millionaire Jimmie Dale de Jekyll an' Hyde of real life!"

Jimmie Dale straightened up suddenly in his seat. There was a shout,
an oath bawled out high above the riot of noise, a chorus of feminine
shrieks from across the room. What was the matter with the
underworld to-night? He seemed fated to find nothing but centres of
disturbance--first a raid at Chang Foo's, and now this. What was the
matter here? They were stampeding toward him from the other side of
the room. There was the roar of a revolver shot--another. Black Ike! He
caught an instant's glimpse of the gunman's distorted face through the
crowd. That was it probably--a row over some moll.

And then, as Jimmie Dale lunged up from his chair to his feet to escape
the rush, pandemonium itself seemed to break loose. Yells, shots,
screams, and oaths filled the air. The crowd surged this way and that.
Tables were overturned and sent crashing to the floor. And then came
sudden darkness, as some one of the attendants in misguided excitability
switched off the lights.

The darkness but served to increase the panic, not allay it. With a
savage snap of his jaws, Jimmie Dale swung from his table in the corner
with the intention of making his way out by a side door behind him--it
was a case of the police again, and the patrolman outside would probably
be pulling a riot call by now. And the police--He stopped suddenly,
as though he had been struck. An envelope, thrust there out of the
darkness, was in his hand; and her voice, HERS, the Tocsin's, was
sounding in his ears:

"Jimmie! Jimmie! I've been trying all evening to catch you! Quick! Get
to the Sanctuary and change your clothes. There's not an instant to
lose! It's for my sake to-night!"

And then a surging mob was around him on every