spicion with a semblance of
nonchalance--now that she had escaped.

But a covert glance aside brought prompt reassurance; after all, the
gods were not unkind; the policeman was just then busy on the far side
of the avenue, hectoring humility into the heart of an unhappy taxicab
operator who had, presumably, violated some minor municipal ordinance.

Inconsistently enough--so strong is the habit of a law-abiding
mind--the sight of that broad, belted, self-sufficient back, symbolic
of the power and sanity of the law, affected Sally with a mad impulse
to turn, hail the officer, and inform him of the conditions she had
just quitted. And she actually swerved aside, as if to cross the
avenue, before she realised how difficult it would be to invoke the
law without implicating herself most damningly.

Recognition of that truth was like receiving a dash of ice-water in
her face; she gasped, cringed, and scurried on up Park Avenue as if
hoping to outdistance thought. A forlorn hope, that: refreshed from
its long rest (for since the storm she had been little better than the
puppet of emotions, appetites, and inarticulate impulses) her mind had
resumed its normal functioning.

Inexorably it analysed her plight and proved that what she had
conceived in an hour of discontent and executed on the spur of an
envious instant could nevermore be undone. What had been planned to be
mere temporary appropriation of an outfit of clothing--"to be returned
in good order, reasonable wear and tear excepted"--was one thing;
safe-breaking, with the theft of Heaven only knew what treasure, was
quite another. As to that, had she not been guilty of active
complicity in the greater crime? How could she be sure (come to think
of it) that the stout man had not been the lawful caretaker rather
than a rival housebreaker?

She had indeed commenced adventures with a vengeance!

The police were bound to learn of the affair all too soon; her part in
it was as certain to become known; too late she was reminded that the
name "Manvers" indelibly identified every garment abandoned in the
bath-room. Before morning certainly, before midnight probably, Sarah
Manvers would be the quarry of a clamorous hue-and-cry.

Appalled, she hurried on aimlessly, now and again breaking into
desperate little jog-trots, with many a furtive glance over shoulder,
with as many questing roundabout for refuge or resource.

But the city of that night wore a visage new and strange