't you know the colonel
better?"

"I hate leaving him like this," he said.

"So do I," said the girl quietly. "I've still got some decent feeling
left. We're all in this together. We're all crooks, as bad as we can
possibly be, and if he's used us we've been willing tools. What is your
Christian name?" she asked.

He looked at her in surprise.

"Jack," he said. "What a weird question to ask!"

"Isn't it?" she said with a laugh but a little catch in her throat.
"Only we're to be comrades and stick to one another, and I hate calling
you by your surname, so I'm going to call you Jack."

It was his turn to be amused. They walked in the opposite direction to
that which the colonel had taken.

"You're very quiet," she said after a while.

"Aren't I?" he laughed.

"Have I offended you?" she asked quickly. "Was it wrong to call you
Jack? Oh, yes, somebody else must have called you Jack."

"No, no, it isn't that," he said, "but I haven't been called by my
Christian name for years and years," he said wearily, "and somehow it
seems to span all the bad times and take me back to the--the----"

"The 'Jack' days?" she suggested, and he nodded.

Then after another period of silence.

"This is a queer ending to it all, isn't it?" he said, and her heart
skipped a beat.

"Ending?" she whispered. "No, no, not ending! It may be the beginning of
a new life. I haven't got religious," she added quickly, "and I'm not
getting sentimental. All my past life doesn't come up in front of me as
it does in the story-books. Only I've just faith that there's something
better in life than I've ever found."

"I should think there is," said Crewe. "It couldn't be much worse,
could it?"

"I haven't been bad," she said--"not bad like you probably think I
have."

"I never thought you were bad," he said. "You were just a victim like
the rest of them. You were only a kid when you started working for the
colonel, weren't you?"

She nodded.

"Well, there's a chance for you, Lollie. Your passage is booked and all
that sort of thing--have you sufficient money?"

"I've plenty of money," she said.

"Fine!" He dropped his hand lightly on her shoulder. "There's a big, big
chance for you, my girl."

"And for you?" she asked.

He laughed.

"There is no chance for me at all," he said simply. "They'll take me and
they'll take Pinto and last of all they'll take the colonel. It is
written," he added philosophically. "Why--why, what is the mat