"Gard!" she called. "Marcus Gard! help me! Tell me--I'll believe
you--I'll believe you--will you tell me the truth!" Her strength left
her suddenly, and as the physician placed a supporting arm about her,
she sank back, her eyes closed wearily. As he laid her gently back upon
the pillows, she sighed softly, her heavy lids unclosed a moment. "I
knew you'd come," she murmured. "You'll take care of--of Dorothy--you
will--" Her voice trailed off into nothingness; then "Marcus"--she
whispered.

The two men turned away. Brencherly coughed. "Is there any hope?" he
asked, breaking the tense silence that seemed suddenly to have entered
the room like an actual presence.

The doctor nodded without speaking. "Yes--hope," he said at length, as
he opened his leather satchel.

* * * * *

XIII

It was well into the small hours of the morning when Brencherly sought
his own rooms in an inconspicuous apartment hotel, where he, his
activities and, at times, strange companions, were not only tolerated,
but welcomed. He was weary, but too excited and elated to desire sleep.
He nodded to the friendly night clerk, and received a favorable response
to his request, even at that unwholesome hour, for coffee and scrambled
eggs to be served in his rooms.

He found Long, his assistant, slumbering sonorously in an armchair in
the living-room of his modest suite. The open door to the chamber
beyond, sufficiently indicated where his charge had been placed.

Long awoke, and stretched himself with a yawn.

"Three o'clock," he observed, with a glance at the mantel clock. "Made a
good haul, hey? Well, your kidnapped beauty is in there, dead to the
world. I tied her feet together before I went to sleep. You can't tell
when they're going to come to, you know, and I thought it would be
safer. Now, tell a feller, what's the dope?"

Brencherly entered the adjoining apartment without deigning an answer,
switched on the lights and approached the bed. The wizen little woman,
with her disheveled white hair and tumbled garments looked pitifully
weak and helpless; her thin, claw-like hands clutching at the pillow in
a childish pose. Her captor stared at her intently, his brain crowded
with strange thoughts. Who was she? What was her history? He had his
suspicions, but they all remained to be verified.

He took one of the emaciated wrists in his hand. How frail and small it
was, and yet, perhaps, an instrument in the