house, what she feared, and the pay-booths of the telephone company
demanded cash in advance. She was incapable of clear thought, or she
would have found some way out, undoubtedly. What she did, in the end,
was to board an up-town car and throw herself on the mercy of the
conductor.

"I've got to get up-town," she panted. "I'll not go in. See? I'll stand
here and you take me as far as you can. Look at me! I don't look as
though I'm just bumming a ride, do I?"

The conductor hesitated. He had very little faith in human nature, but
Anna's eyes were both truthful and desperate. He gave the signal to go
on.

"What's up?" he said. "Police after you?"

"Yes," Anna replied briefly.

There is, in certain ranks, a tacit conspiracy against the police. The
conductor hated them. They rode free on his car, and sometimes kept an
eye on him in the rush hours. They had a way, too, of letting him settle
his own disputes with inebriated gentlemen who refused to pay their
fares.

"Looks as though they'd come pretty close to grabbing you," he opened,
by way of conversation. "But ten of 'em aren't a match for one smart
girl. They can't run. All got flat feet."

Anna nodded. She was faint and dizzy, and the car seemed to creep along.
It was twenty minutes after eleven when she got out. The conductor
leaned down after her, hanging to the handrail.

"Good luck to you!" he said. "And you'd better get a better face on you
than that. It's enough to send you up, on suspicion!"

She hardly heard him. She began to run, and again she said over and over
her little inarticulate prayer. She knew the Spencer house. More
than once she had walked past it, on Sunday afternoons, for the
sheer pleasure of seeing Graham's home. Well, all that was over now.
Everything was over, unless--

The Spencer house was dark, save for a low light in the hall. A new
terror seized her. Suppose Graham saw her. He might not believe her
story. He might think it a ruse to see his father. But, as it happened,
Clayton had sent the butler to bed, and himself answered the bell from
the library.

He recognized her at once, and because he saw the distress on her face
he brought her in at once. In the brief moment that it required to turn
on the lights he had jumped to a sickening conviction that Graham was
at the bottom of her visit, and her appearance in full light confirmed
this.

"Come into the library," he said. "We can talk in there." He led the
way and drew up