savage menace now. "I've been busy. Understand, Bertha? It was either
ourselves, or them. We've got to go under--or they have. And we won't! I
promise you that! Things'll break a little better before long, and I'll
make it up to you."

She could not see him in the blackness of the garret. She breathed a
prayer of gratitude that he could not see her. Her face, in spite of
Gipsy Nan's disguising grime, must be white, white as death itself. It
seemed to plumb some infamous depth from which her soul recoiled, this
apology of his for his neglect of her. And then her hands at her
sides curled into tight-clenched little fists as she strove to control
herself. His words, at least, supplied her with her cue.

"Of course!" she said tartly, but in perfect English--the vernacular of
Gypsy Nan was not for Danglar, for she remembered only too well how
once before it had nearly tripped her up. "But you didn't come here to
apologize! What is it you want?"

"Ah, I say, Bertha!" he said appeasingly. "Cut that out! I couldn't help
being away, I tell you. Of course, I didn't come here to apologize--I
thought you'd understand well enough without that. The gang's out of
cash, and I came to tap the reserves. Let me have a package of the long
green, Bertha."

It was a moment before she spoke. Her woman's instinct prompted her to
let down the bars between them in no single degree, that her protection
lay in playing up to the full what Danglar, jumping at conclusions, had
assumed was a grouch at his neglect. Also, her mind worked quickly.
Her own clothes were no longer in the secret hiding place here in
the garret; they were out there in that old shed in the lane. It was
perfectly safe, then, to let Danglar go to the hiding place himself,
assuming that he knew where it was--which, almost of necessity, he must.

"Oh!" she said ungraciously. "Well, you know where it is, don't you?
Suppose you go and get it yourself!"

"All right!" returned Danglar, a sullenness creeping into his voice.
"Have it your own way, Bertha! I haven't got time to-night to coax
you out of your tantrums. That's what you want, but I haven't got
time--to-night."

She did not answer.

A match crackled in Danglar's hand; the flames spurted up through the
darkness. Danglar made his way over to the rickety washstand, found the
candle that was stuck in the neck of the gin bottle, lighted it, held
the candle above his head, and stared around the garret.

"Why the devil do