s life, or the Adventurer's! But she shrank
from taking life. Her lips were breathing a prayer. They had called her
a crack shot back there in South America, when she had hunted and ridden
with her father. It was easy enough to hit Danglar, but that might mean
Danglar's life; it was not so easy to hit Danglar's arm, or Danglar's
hand, or the revolver Danglar held, and if she risked that and missed,
she...

"Thr--"

There was the roar of a report that went racketing through the silence
like a cannon shot, and the short, vicious tongue-flame from Rhoda
Gray's revolver muzzle stabbed through the black. There was a scream of
mingled surprise and fury, and the revolver in Danglar's hand clattered
to the floor. She saw the Adventurer spring, quick as a panther, at the
other, and saw him whip blow after blow with terrific force full into
Danglar's face; she heard a rush of feet coming from the corridor behind
her; and she flung herself forward into the inner room, and, panting,
snatched at the door and slammed it shut, and groping for the bolt,
found it, and shot it home in its grooves.

And she stood there, weak for the moment, and drew her hand across her
eyes--and behind her they pounded on the door, and there came a burst
of oaths; and in front of her the Adventurer was smiling gravely as
he covered Danglar with Danglar's own revolver; and Danglar, as though
dazed and half stunned from the blows he had received, rocked unsteadily
upon his feet. And then her eyes widened a little. The pounding on the
door, the shouts, the noise, was beginning to arouse what inmates there
were in the tenement, and there wasn't an instant to lose--but the
Adventurer now was calmly gathering up, to the last one, and pocketing
them, the banknotes with which Danglar had baited his trap. And as he
crammed the money into his pockets, he spoke to her, with a curious
softness, a great, strange gentleness in his voice:

"I owe you my life, Miss Gray. That was a wonderful shot. You knocked
the revolver from his hand without even grazing his fingers. A very
wonderful shot, and--will you let me say it?--you are a very wonderful
woman."

"Oh, quick!" she whispered wildly. "I am afraid this door will not
hold."

"There is the window, and the fire escape, so our friend here was good
enough to inform me," said the Adventurer, as he composedly pocketed the
last dollar. "Will you open the window, Miss Gray, if you please? I am
afraid I hit Mr. Danglar