tly. "Me t'roat's gettin' hoarse tellin' youse dere's nothin'
doin'!"

"I'm sorry," said the Adventurer again. He smiled suddenly, and tucking
his gloves into his pocket, leaned forward and tore off a small piece
from the margin of the newspaper on the floor--but his head the while
was now cocked in a curious listening attitude in the direction of the
door. "You will pardon me, my dear lady, if I confess that, in spite of
what you say, I still harbor the belief that you know where to reach
the White Moll; and so--" He stopped abruptly, and she found his glance,
sharp and critical, upon her. "You are expecting a visitor, perhaps?" he
inquired softly.

Rhoda Gray stared in genuine perplexity.

"Wot's de answer?" she demanded.

"There is some one on the stairs," replied the Adventurer.

Rhoda Gray listened--and her perplexity deepened. She could hear
nothing.

"Youse must have good ears!" she scoffed.

"I have," returned the Adventurer coolly. "My hearing is one of the
resources that I wanted to pool with the White Moll."

"Well, den, mabbe it's Rough Rorke." Her tone still held its scoffing
note; but her words voiced the genuine enough, that had come flashing
upon her. "An' if it is, after last night, an' he finds youse an' me
together, dere'll be--"

"My dear lady," interposed the Adventurer calmly, "if there were the
remotest possibility that it could be Rough Rorke, I would not be here."

"Wot do youse mean?" She had unconsciously towered her voice.

The Adventurer shrugged his shoulders whimsically. He had laid the piece
of paper on his knee, and, with a small gold pencil which he had taken
from his pocket, was writing something upon it.

"The fact that I can assure you that, whoever else it may be, the person
outside there cannot be Rough Rorke, is simply a proof that, if I had
the opportunity, I could be of real assistance to the White Moll,"
he said imperturbably. "Well"--a grim little smile flickered suddenly
across his lips--"do you hear any one now?"

Quite low, but quite unmistakably, the short, ladder-like steps just
outside the door were voicing a creaky protest now as some one mounted
them. Rhoda Gray did not move. It seemed as though she could hear the
sudden thumping of her own heart. Who was it this time? How was she to
act? What was she to say? It was so easy to make the single little slip
of word or manner that would spell ruin and disaster.

"Rubber heels and rubber soles," murmured th