on the bed.

Rhoda Gray's eyes darkened, as she closed the door behind her, and
stepped quickly forward to the bedside. For a moment she stood looking
down at the recumbent figure; at the matted tangle of gray-streaked
brown hair that straggled across a pillow which was none too clean; at
the heavy-lensed, old-fashioned, steel-bowed spectacles, awry now, that
were still grotesquely perched on the woman's nose; at the sallow face,
streaked with grime and dirt, as though it had not been washed for
months; at a hand, as ill-cared for, which lay exposed on the torn
blanket that did duty for a counterpane; at the dirty shawl that
enveloped the woman's shoulders, and which was tightly fastened around
Gypsy Nan's neck-and from the woman her eyes shifted to an empty bottle
on the floor that protruded from under the bed.

"Nan!" she called sharply; and, stooping over, shook the woman's
shoulder. "Nan!" she repeated. There was something about the woman's
breathing that she did not like, something in the queer, pinched
condition of the other's face that suddenly frightened her. "Nan!" she
called again.

Gypsy Nan opened her eyes, stared for a moment dully, then, in a
curiously quick, desperate way, jerked herself up on her elbow.

"Youse get t'hell outer here!" she croaked. "Get out!"

"I am going to," said Rhoda Gray evenly. "And I'm going at once." She
turned abruptly and walked toward the door. "I'm going to get a doctor.
You've gone too far this time, Nan, and--"

"No, youse don't!" Gypsy Nan s voice rose in a sudden scream. She sat
bolt upright in bed, and pulled a revolver out from under the coverings.
"Youse don't bring no doctor here! See! Youse put a finger on dat door,
an' it won't be de door youse'1l go out by!"

Rhoda Gray did not move.

"Nan, put that revolver down!" she ordered quietly. "You don't know what
you are doing."

"Don't!" leered Gypsy Nan. The revolver held, swaying a little
unsteadily, on Rhoda Gray. There was silence for a moment; then Gypsy
Nan spoke again, evidently through dry lips, for she wet them again and
again with her tongue: "Say, youse are de White Moll, ain't youse?"

"Yes," said Rhoda Gray.

Gypsy Nan appeared to ponder this for an instant.

"Well den, come back here an' sit down on de foot of de bed," she
commanded finally.

Rhoda Gray obeyed without hesitation. There was nothing to do but humor
the woman in her present state, a state that seemed one bordering on
delirium