herself.

"You're going to think very badly of me," she said, "and I hate the
thought, Mr. Tarling--you don't know how I hate it. I want you to think
that I am innocent, but I am going to make no effort to prove that I was
not guilty."

"You're mad!" he interrupted her roughly "Stark, raving mad! You must do
something, do you hear? You've got to do something."

She shook her head, and the little hand which rested on his closed gently
about two of his fingers.

"I can't," she said simply. "I just can't."

Tarling pushed back the chair from the bed. He could have groaned at the
hopelessness of the girl's case. If she had only given him one thread
that would lead him to another clue, if she only protested her innocence!
His heart sank within him, and he could only shake his head helplessly.

"Suppose," he said huskily, "that you are charged with this--crime. Do
you mean to tell me that you will not produce evidence that could prove
your innocence, that you will make no attempt to defend yourself?"

She nodded.

"I mean that," she said.

"My God! You don't know what you're saying," he cried, starting up.
"You're mad, Odette, stark mad!"

She only smiled for the fraction of a second, and that at the unconscious
employment of her Christian name.

"I'm not at all mad," she said. "I am very sane."

She looked at him thoughtfully, and then of a sudden seemed to shrink
back, and her face went whiter. "You--you have a warrant for me!" she
whispered.

He nodded.

"And you're going to arrest me?"

He shook his head.

"No," he said briefly. "I am leaving that to somebody else. I have
sickened of the case, and I'm going out of it."

"He sent you here," she said slowly.

"He?"

"Yes--I remember. You were working with him, or he wanted you to work
with him."

"Of whom are you speaking?" asked Tarling quickly.

"Thornton Lyne," said the girl.

Tarling leaped to his feet and stared down at her.

"Thornton Lyne?" he repeated. "Don't you know?"

"Know what?" asked the girl with a frown.

"That Thornton Lyne is dead," said Tarling, "and that it is for his
murder that a warrant has been issued for your arrest?"

She looked at him for a moment with wide, staring eyes.

"Dead!" she gasped. "Dead! Thornton Lyne dead! You don't mean that, you
don't mean that?" She clutched at Tarling's arm. "Tell me that isn't
true! He did not do it, he dare not do it!"

She swayed forward, and Tarling, dropping on his knees