for the
moment he surrendered himself to pride. The sound of the chair shoved
back by the inspector was not unexpected, nor did he fail to catch the
note of apology, the appeal for terms in the gruff voice.

"Come back here. Where are you going?"

But it was another voice that swung him sharply.

"Jim! Don't lose your temper."

The inspector's fist scattered the papers on his desk top.

"Who's running this office?"

Garth scarcely heard. He strode to the woman. He snatched the
intricately-patterned shawl from her head. The face beneath was old,
stained, and wrinkled; but there was no disguising the dark, young eyes
which smiled up at him.

"So that's why?" he gasped. "You've done it well, Nora. Now maybe I can
know something about it."

She laughed.

"Not if you resign. So much dignity!"

He laughed back.

"Nor if I'm fired."

The inspector grinned.

"I'm glad you let me in this on some basis."

The disclosure of the girl's personality had scattered Garth's revolt,
and her eyes, now that they were no longer concealed, seemed to have
rebuked the inspector to a milder humour.

"Understand," he said, "Nora doesn't tell me any too much how she's
working, and she's been at this off and on for a long time. It's only
the last two weeks that it's gotten serious. She had to see me to-day.
That's why I'm on my ear about the Chinaman. He might have saved her a
good deal. You see, she's working on that case."

Garth's heart sank.

"Dope!" he cried. "It isn't safe. I tell you she's fighting desperate
people, inspector. Look at that Chinaman, whether he's mixed up with the
traffic or not, if a brute like him suspected her!"

The inspector returned to his chair. He waved his hands helplessly.

"Talk to Nora. I've told her all that. Once or twice I've wanted her to
use her brain in cases where there wasn't any risk. Nothing doing. When
this rotten business came up she would go into it on her own hook. I
guess that's because she knows Manford and his high-brow, meddling
society have got the district attorney behind them, and they've put it
up to me hard."

Nora shook her head, smiling a trifle wistfully.

"No, father, I did it to save souls and bodies. You see, Jim, they can
handle the little fellows under the new laws, but everybody knows
there's this one place up-town, marvelously hidden and guarded--a
distributing center, the heart of the whole surviving drug traffic.
When I found out from father that eve