She leaned toward him, staring at him in the semi-darkness. That
premonitory vista was widening; his words seemed suddenly to set her
brain in tumult. After to-night! She was to resume, after to-night, the
character that was supposed to lay behind the disguise of Gypsy Nan! She
was to resume her supposedly true character--that of Pierre Danglar's
wife!

"What do you mean?" she demanded tensely.

"Aw, come on!" he said abruptly. "This isn't the place to talk. Pierre
wants you at once. That's what the message was for. I thought you were
out, and I left it in the usual place so you'd get it the minute you got
back and come along over. So, come on now with me."

He was moving down the hallway, blotching like some misshapen toad in
the shadowy light, lurching in his walk, that was, nevertheless, almost
uncannily noiseless. Mechanically she followed him. She was trying to
think; striving frantically to bring her wits to play on this sudden and
unexpected denouement. It was obvious that he was taking her to Danglar.
She had striven desperately last night to run Danglar to earth in
his lair. And here was a self-appointed guide! And yet her emotions
conflicted and her brain was confused. It was what she wanted, what
through bitter travail of mind she had decided must be her course; but
she found herself shrinking from it with dread and fear now that it
promised to become a reality. It was not like last night when of her own
initiative she had sought to track Danglar, for then she had started
out with a certain freedom of action that held in reserve a freedom
to retreat if it became necessary. To-night it was as though she were
deprived of that freedom, and being led into what only too easily might
develop into a trap from which she could not retreat or escape.

Suppose she refused to go?

They had reached the street now, and now she obtained a better view of
the misshapen thing that lurched jerkily along beside her. The man was
deformed, miserably deformed. He walked most curiously, half bent over;
and one arm, the left, seemed to swing helplessly, and the left hand was
like a withered thing. Her eyes sought the other's face. It was an old
face, much older than Danglar's, and it was white and pinched and drawn;
and in the dark eyes, as they suddenly darted a glance at her, she read
a sullen, bitter brooding and discontent. She turned her head away. It
was not a pleasant face; it struck her as being both morbid and cruel to