"If I went there, could I see her?"

"When?"

"This afternoon."

"Nothin' doin'--too late. You might work it to-morrow. Step down to
headquarters, they'll tell you. If she's up for felony it means five
years and them kind ain't easy to see. Can I do anything more for you?"

"No," said Felix firmly.

"Well, then, move on, both of you--you can't block up the desk."

Felix turned and left the station-house, Kitty following in silence, her
heart torn for the man beside her. Never had he seemed finer to her than
at this moment; never had her own heart stirred with greater loyalty.
But never since she had known him had she seen him so shaken.

"There is nothing more we can do to-day," he said, speaking evenly,
almost coldly, when they reached the corner of the street. "I will see
Father Cruse to-night and tell him of your kindness, and he can decide
as to what is to be done. And if you do not mind, I will leave you."

She stood and watched him as he disappeared in the throng. She
understood her dismissal and was not offended. It was not her secret and
she had no right to interfere or even to advise. When he was ready he
would tell her. Until that time she would wait with her hands held out.

Felix crossed the street, halted for an instant as if uncertain as to
his course, and turned toward the river. He wanted to be alone, and the
crowd gave him a greater sense of isolation. It was the first time
in months that he had tramped the thoroughfares without some definite
object in view. All that was now a thing of the past, never to be
revived. His quest was finished. The interview with the sergeant had
ended it all. Every item in his detailed account of the woman now in
the Tombs tallied with Kitty's description of the woman with the
sleeve-buttons and so on, in turn, with the woman who was once his wife.

With this knowledge there flamed up in his heart an uncontrollable
anger, fanned to white heat by hatred of the man who had caused it all.
His fingers tightened and his teeth ground together. That reckoning, he
said to himself, would come later, once he got his hands on him. If
she were a thief, Dalton had made her so. If she were an outcast and a
menace to society, Dalton had done it. By what hellish process, he could
not divine, knowing Lady Barbara as he did, but the fact was undeniable.

What then was he to do? Go back to London and leave her, or stay here
and fight on in the effort to save her? SAVE HER! Who