make signals, as if anxious to
attract his attention. She writhed toward him.

"Young man," she whispered audibly, "they've got me--I knew they would.
Even you could not keep me so hidden they couldn't find me." She jerked
an accusing thumb over her shoulder at the corpulent bulk of her
erstwhile jailer. "They've been trying to make me tell how I got out;
but I won't tell. I may want to do it again, you see, and you won't
tell."

"But," said Brencherly soothingly, "you don't want to get out now, you
know. You've no reason to want to get out."

She nodded, as if considering his statement seriously.

"Of course, since I've got Victor out of the way, I don't much care. And
I had awful trouble to steal enough money to get about with. Why, I had
to pick ever so many pockets, and I do hate touching people; you never
can tell what germs they may have." She shook out her rusty black skirt
as if to detach any possible contagion.

"But, why," the incisive voice of the attorney inquired, "did you want
to kill Victor Mahr?"

"Why?" she screamed, her body suddenly stiffening. "Suppose you were his
wife, and he locked you up in places, and made people call you Mrs.
Welles, while he went swelling around everywhere, and making millions!
What'd you do? And besides, it wasn't only _that_, you see. _I_ knew,
being his wife, that he was a devil--oh, yes, he was; you needn't look
as if you didn't believe it. But I soon learned that when I said I was
'Mrs. Victor Mahr' in the places he put me into, they laughed at me, the
way they do at my roommate, who says she's a sideboard and wants to hold
a tea-set."

"Tell these gentlemen how cleverly you traced him," suggested
Brencherly.

"Oh, I knew where he lived and what he was doing well enough." She
bridled with conscious conceit; "I read the papers and I had it all
written down. So when I got out and stole the money, I knew just where
to go. But he's foxy, too. I knew I'd have to _make_ him see me. So I
stole some of the doctor's letterhead paper, and I wrote on it,
'Important news from the Institution'--that's what he likes to call his
boarding house--an institution." She laughed. "It worked!" she went on
as she regained her breath. "I just sent that message, and they let me
go right in. 'Well, what is it--what is it?' Victor said, just like
that." Her tones of mimicry were ghastly. She paused a moment, then
broke out:

"Now you won't believe it, but I hadn't the slightest idea wha