z's room. I was hidden there all the time last
night." She was removing her spectacles and her wig of tangled gray hair
as she spoke, and now she turned her face full upon Danglar. "I heard
you discuss Deemer's murder with your brother last night, and plan to
get rid of Cloran, who you thought was the only existing witness you
need fear, and--"

"Great God!" The Adventurer cried out. "You--Rhoda! The White Moll! I--I
don't understand, though I can see you are not the woman who originally
masqueraded as Gypsy Nan, for I knew her, as I said, by sight."

He was on his feet now, his face aflame with a great light. He took a
step toward her.

"Wait!" she said hurriedly. She glanced at Danglar. The man's face was
blanched, his body seemed to have shriveled up, and there was a light
in his eyes as they held upon her that was near to the borderland of
insanity. "That night at Skarbolov's!" she said, and tried to hold her
voice in control. "Gypsy Nan, this man's wife, died that night in the
hospital. I had found her here sick, and I had promised not to divulge
her secret. I helped her get to the hospital. She was dying; she was
penitent in a way; she wanted to prevent a crime that she said was to be
perpetrated that night, but she would not inform on her accomplices. She
begged me to forestall them, and return the money anonymously the next
day. That was the choice I had--either to allow the crime to be carried
out, or else swear to act alone in return for the information that would
enable me to keep the money away from the thieves without bringing the
police into it. I--I was caught. You--you saved me from Rough Rorke, but
he followed me. I put on Gypsy Nan's clothes, and managed to outwit
him. I had had no opportunity to return the money, which would have been
proof of my innocence; the only way I could prove it, then, was to try
and find the authors of the crime myself. I--I have lived since then as
Gypsy Nan, fighting this hideous gang of Danglar's here to try and save
myself, and--and to-night I thought I could see my way clear. I--I knew
enough at last about this man to make him give me a written statement
that it was a pre-arranged plan to rob Skarbolov. That would
substantiate my story. And"--she looked again at Danglar; the man
was still crouched there, eying her with that same mad light in his
eyes--"and he must be made to--to do it now for--"

"But why didn't you ask me?" cried the Adventurer. "You knew me as the