"But you won't pay them enough to live on!" The very fact that the words were spoken without any trace of rancor merely made this statement of indisputable truth obnoxious to the man, who was stung to more savage resentment in asserting his impugned self-righteousness.

"I pay them the same as the other stores do," he repeated, sullenly.

Yet once again, the gently cadenced voice gave answer, an answer informed with that repulsive insistence to the man who sought to resist her indictment of him.

"But you won't pay them enough to live on." The simple lucidity of the charge forbade direct reply.

Gilder betook himself to evasion by harking back to the established ground of complaint.

"And, so, you claim that you were forced to steal. That's the plea you make for yourself and your friends."

"I wasn't forced to steal," came the answer, spoken in the monotone that had marked her utterance throughout most of the interview. "I wasn't forced to steal, and I didn't steal. But, all the same, that's the plea, as you call it, that I'm making for the other girls. There are hundreds of them who steal because they don't get enough to eat. I said I would tell you how to stop the stealing. Well, I have done it. Give the girls a fair chance to be honest. You asked me for the names, Mr. Gilder. There's only one name on which to put the blame for the whole business—and that name is Edward Gilder!... Now, won't you do something about it?"

At that naked question, the owner of the store jumped up from his chair, and stood glowering at the girl who risked a request so full of vituperation against himself.

"How dare you speak to me like this?" he thundered.

There was no disconcertion exhibited by the one thus challenged. On the contrary, she repeated her question with a simple dignity that still further outraged the man.

"Won't you, please, do something about it?"

"How dare you?" he shouted again. Now, there was stark wonder in his eyes as he put the question.

"Why, I dared," Mary Turner explained, "because you have done all the harm you can to me. And, now, I'm trying to give you the chance to do better by the others. You ask me why I dare. I have a right to dare! I have been straight all my life. I have wanted decent food and warm clothes, and—a little happiness, all the time I have worked for you, and I have gone without those things, just to stay straight.... The end of it all is: You are sending me to prison for something I didn't do. That's why I dare!"

Cassidy, the officer in charge of Mary Turner, had stood patiently beside her all this while, always holding her by the wrist. He had been mildly interested in the verbal duel between the big man of the department store and this convict in his own keeping. Vaguely, he had marveled at the success of the frail girl in declaiming of her injuries before the magnate. He had felt no particular interest beyond that, merely looking on as one might at any entertaining spectacle. The question at issue was no concern of his. His sole business was to take the girl away when the interview should be ended. It occurred to him now that this might, in fact, be the time to depart. It seemed, indeed, that the insistent reiteration of the girl had at last left he owner of the store quite powerless to answer. It was possible, then, that it were wiser the girl should be removed. With the idea in mind, he stared inquiringly at Gilder until he caught that flustered gentleman's eye. A nod from the magnate sufficed him. Gilder, in truth, could not trust himself just then to an audible command. He was seriously disturbed by the gently spoken truths that had issued from the girl's lips. He was not prepared with any answer, though he hotly resented every word of her accusation. So, when he caught the question in the glance of the officer, he felt a guilty sensation of relief as he signified an affirmative by his gesture.

Cassidy faced about, and in his movement there was a tug at the wrist of the girl that set her moving toward the door. Her realization of what this meant was shown in her final speech.

"Oh, he can take me now," she said, bitterly. Then her voice rose above the monotone that had contented her hitherto. Into the music of her tones beat something sinister, evilly vindictive, as she faced about at the doorway to which Cassidy had led her. Her face, as she scrutinized once again the man at the desk, was coldly malignant.

"Three years isn't forever," she said, in a level voice. "When I come out, you are going to pay for every minute of them, Mr. Gilder. There won't be a day or an hour that I won't remember that at the last it was your word sent me to prison. And you are going to pay me for that. You are going to pay me for the five years I have starved making money for you—that, too! You are going to pay me for all the things I am losing today, and——"

The girl thrust forth her left hand, on that side where stood the officer. So vigorous was her movement that Cassidy's clasp was thrown off the wrist. But the bond between the two was not broken, for from wrist to wrist showed taut the steel chain of the manacles. The girl shook the links of the handcuffs in a gesture stronger than words. In her final utterance to the agitated man at the desk, there was a cold threat, a prophecy of disaster. From the symbol of her degradation, she looked to the man whose action had placed it there. In the clashing of their glances, hers won the victory, so that his eyes fell before the menace in hers.

"You are going to pay me for this!" she said. Her voice was little more than a whisper, but it was loud in the listener's heart. "Yes, you are going to pay—for this!"



CHAPTER VI. INFERNO.

They were grim years, those three during which Mary Turner served her sentence in Burnsing. There was no time off for good behavior. The girl learned soon that the favor of those set in authority over her could only be won at a cost against which her every maidenly instinct revolted. So, she went through the inferno of days and nights in a dreariness of suffering that was deadly. Naturally, the life there was altogether an evil thing. There was the material ill ever present in the round of wearisome physical toil, the coarse, distasteful food, the hard, narrow couch, the constant, gnawing irksomeness of imprisonment, away from light and air, away from all that makes life worth while.

Yet, these afflictions were not the worst injuries to mar the girl convict's life. That which bore upon her most weightily and incessantly was the degradation of this environment from which there was never any respite, the viciousness of this spot wherein she had been cast through no fault of her own. Vileness was everywhere, visibly in the faces of many, and it was brimming from the souls of more, subtly hideous. The girl held herself rigidly from any personal intimacy with her fellows. To some extent, at least, she could separate herself from their corruption in the matter of personal association. But, ever present, there was a secret energy of vice that could not be escaped so simply—nor, indeed, by any device; that breathed in the spiritual atmosphere itself of the place. Always, this mysterious, invisible, yet horribly potent, power of sin was like a miasma throughout the prison. Always, it was striving to reach her soul, to make her of its own. She fought the insidious, fetid force as best she might. She was not evil by nature. She had been well grounded in principles of righteousness. Nevertheless, though she maintained the integrity of her character, that character suffered from the taint. There developed over the girl's original sensibility a shell of hardness, which in time would surely come to make her less scrupulous in her reckoning of right and wrong.

Yet, as a rule, character remains the same throughout life as to its prime essentials, and, in this case, Mary Turner at the end of her term was vitally almost as wholesome as on the day when she began the serving of the sentence. The change wrought in her was chiefly of an external sort. The kindliness of her heart and her desire for the seemly joys of life were unweakened. But over the better qualities of her nature was now spread a crust of worldly hardness, a denial of appeal to her sensibilities. It was this that would eventually bring her perilously close to contented companioning with crime.

The best evidence of the fact that Mary Turner's soul was not fatally soiled must be found in the fact that still, at the expiration of her sentence, she was fully resolved to live straight, as the saying is which she had quoted to Gilder. This, too, in the face of sure knowledge as to the difficulties that would beset the effort, and in the face of the temptations offered to follow an easier path.

There was, for example, Aggie Lynch, a fellow convict, with whom she had a slight degree of acquaintance, nothing more. This young woman, a criminal by training, offered allurements of illegitimate employment in the outer world when they should be free. Mary endured the companionship with this prisoner because a sixth sense proclaimed the fact that here was one unmoral, rather than immoral—and the difference is mighty. For that reason, Aggie Lynch was not actively offensive, as were most of the others. She was a dainty little blonde, with a baby face, in which were set two light-blue eyes, of a sort to widen often in demure wonder over most things in a surprising and naughty world. She had been convicted of blackmail, and she made no pretense even of innocence. Instead, she was inclined to boast over her ability to bamboozle men at her will. She was a natural actress of the ingenue role, and in that pose she could unfailingly beguile the heart of the wisest of worldly men.

Perhaps, the very keen student of physiognomy might have discovered grounds for suspecting her demureness by reason of the thick, level brows that cast a shadow on the bland innocence of her face. For the rest, she possessed a knack of rather harmless perversity, a fair smattering of grammar and spelling, and a lively sense of humor within her own limitations, with a particularly small intelligence in other directions. Her one art was histrionics of the kind that made an individual appeal. In such, she was inimitable. She had been reared in a criminal family, which must excuse much. Long ago, she had lost track of her father; her mother she had never known. Her one relation was a brother of high standing as a pickpocket. One principal reason of her success in leading on men to make fools of themselves over her, to their everlasting regret afterward, lay in the fact that, in spite of all the gross irregularities of her life, she remained chaste. She deserved no credit for such restraint, since it was a matter purely of temperament, not of resolve.

The girl saw in Mary Turner the possibilities of a ladylike personality that might mean much financial profit in the devious ways of which she was a mistress. With the frankness characteristic of her, she proceeded to paint glowing pictures of a future shared to the undoing of ardent and fatuous swains. Mary Turner listened with curiosity, but she was in no wise moved to follow such a life, even though it did not necessitate anything worse than a fraudulent playing at love, without physical degradation. So, she steadfastly continued her refusals, to the great astonishment of Aggie, who actually could not understand in the least, even while she believed the other's declaration of innocence of the crime for which she was serving a sentence. But, for her own part, such innocence had nothing to do with the matter. Where, indeed, could be the harm in making some old sinner pay a round price for his folly? And always, in response to every argument, Mary shook her head in negation. She would live straight.

Then, the heavy brows of Aggie would draw down a little, and the baby face would harden.

"You will find that you are up against a hell of a frost," she would declare, brutally.

Mary found the profane prophecy true. Back in New York, she experienced a poverty more ravaging than any she had known in those five lean years of her working in the store. She had been absolutely penniless for two days, and without food through the gnawing hours, when she at last found employment of the humblest in a milliner's shop. Followed a blessed interval in which she worked contentedly, happy over the meager stipend, since it served to give her shelter and food honestly earned.

But the ways of the police are not always those of ordinary decency. In due time, an officer informed Mary's employer concerning the fact of her record as a convict, and thereupon she was at once discharged. The unfortunate victim of the law came perilously close to despair then. Yet, her spirit triumphed, and again she persevered in that resolve to live straight. Finally, for the second time, she secured a cheap position in a cheap shop—only to be again persecuted by the police, so that she speedily lost the place.

Nevertheless, indomitable in her purpose, she maintained the struggle. A third time she obtained work, and there, after a little, she told her employer, a candy manufacturer in a small way, the truth as to her having been in prison. The man had a kindly heart, and, in addition, he ran little risk in the matter, so he allowed her to remain. When, presently, the police called his attention to the girl's criminal record, he paid no heed to their advice against retaining her services. But such action on his part offended the greatness of the law's dignity. The police brought pressure to bear on the man. They even called in the assistance of Edward Gilder himself, who obligingly wrote a very severe letter to the girl's employer. In the end, such tactics alarmed the man. For the sake of his own interests, though unwillingly enough, he dismissed Mary from his service.

It was then that despair did come upon the girl. She had tried with all the strength of her to live straight. Yet, despite her innocence, the world would not let her live according to her own conscience. It demanded that she be the criminal it had branded her—if she were to live at all. So, it was despair! For she would not turn to evil, and without such turning she could not live. She still walked the streets falteringly, seeking some place; but her heart was gone from the quest. Now, she was sunken in an apathy that saved her from the worst pangs of misery. She had suffered so much, so poignantly, that at last her emotions had grown sluggish. She did not mind much even when her tiny hoard of money was quite gone, and she roamed the city, starving.... Came an hour when she thought of the river, and was glad!

Mary remembered, with a wan smile, how, long ago, she had thought with amazed horror of suicide, unable to imagine any trouble sufficient to drive one to death as the only relief. Now, however, the thing was simple to her. Since there was nothing else, she must turn to that—to death. Indeed, it was so very simple, so final, and so easy, after the agonies she had endured, that she marveled over her own folly in not having sought such escape before.... Even with the first wild fancy, she had unconsciously bent her steps westward toward the North River. Now, she quickened her pace, anxious for the plunge that should set the term to sorrow. In her numbed brain was no flicker of thought as to whatever might come to her afterward. Her sole guide was that compelling passion of desire to be done with this unbearable present. Nothing else mattered—not in the least!

So, she came through the long stretch of ill-lighted streets, crossed some railroad tracks to a pier, over which she hurried to the far end, where it projected out to the fiercer currents of the Hudson. There, without giving herself a moment's pause for reflection or hesitation, she leaped out as far as her strength permitted into the coil of waters.... But, in that final second, natural terror in the face of death overcame the lethargy of despair—a shriek burst from her lips.

But for that scream of fear, the story of Mary Turner had ended there and then. Only one person was anywhere near to catch the sound. And that single person heard. On the south side of the pier a man had just tied up a motor-boat. He stood up in alarm at the cry, and was just in time to gain a glimpse of a white face under the dim moonlight as it swept down with the tide, two rods beyond him. On the instant, he threw off his coat and sprang far out after the drifting body. He came to it in a few furious strokes, caught it. Then began the savage struggle to save her and himself. The currents tore at him wrathfully, but he fought against them with all the fierceness of his nature. He had strength a-plenty, but it needed all of it, and more, to win out of the river's hungry clutch. What saved the two of them was the violent temper of the man. Always, it had been the demon to set him aflame. To-night, there in the faint light, within the grip of the waters, he was moved to insensate fury against the element that menaced. His rage mounted, and gave him new power in the battle. Maniacal strength grew out of supreme wrath. Under the urge of it, he conquered—at last brought himself and his charge to the shore.

When, finally, the rescuer was able to do something more than gasp chokingly, he gave anxious attention to the woman whom he had brought out from the river. Yet, at the outset, he could not be sure that she still lived. She had shown no sign of life at any time since he had first seized her. That fact had been of incalculable advantage to him in his efforts to reach the shore with her. Now, however, it alarmed him mightily, though it hardly seemed possible that she could have drowned. So far as he could determine, she: had not even sunk once beneath the surface. Nevertheless, she displayed no evidence of vitality, though he chafed her hands for a long time. The shore here was very lonely; it would take precious time to summon aid. It seemed, notwithstanding, that this must be the only course. Then just as the man was about to leave her, the girl sighed, very faintly, with an infinite weariness, and opened her eyes. The man echoed the sigh, but his was of joy, since now he knew that his strife in the girl's behalf had not been in vain.

Afterward, the rescuer experienced no great difficulty in carrying out his work to a satisfactory conclusion. Mary revived to clear consciousness, which was at first inclined toward hysteria, but this phase yielded soon under the sympathetic ministrations of the man. His rather low voice was soothing to her tired soul, and his whole air was at once masterful and gently tender. Moreover, there was an inexpressible balm to her spirit in the very fact that some one was thus ministering to her. It was the first time for many dreadful years that any one had taken thought for her welfare. The effect of it was like a draught of rarest wine to warm her heart. So, she rested obediently as he busied himself with her complete restoration, and, when finally she was able to stand, and to walk with the support of his arm, she went forward slowly at his side without so much even as a question of whither.

And, curiously, the man himself shared the gladness that touched the mood of the girl, for he experienced a sudden pride in his accomplishment of the night, a pride that delighted a starved part of his nature. Somewhere in him were the seeds of self-sacrifice, the seeds of a generous devotion to others. But those seeds had been left undeveloped in a life that had been lived since early boyhood outside the pale of respectability. To-night, Joe Garson had performed, perhaps, his first action with no thought of self at the back of it. He had risked his life to save that of a stranger. The fact astonished him, while it pleased him hugely. The sensation was at once novel and thrilling. Since it was so agreeable, he meant to prolong the glow of self-satisfaction by continuing to care for this waif of the river. He must make his rescue complete. It did not occur to him to question his fitness for the work. His introspection did not reach to a point of suspecting that he, an habitual criminal, was necessarily of a sort to be most objectionable as the protector of a young girl. Indeed, had any one suggested the thought to him, he would have met it with a sneer, to the effect that a wretch thus tired of life could hardly object to any one who constituted himself her savior.

In this manner, Joe Garson, the notorious forger, led the dripping girl eastward through the squalid streets, until at last they came to an adequately lighted avenue, and there a taxicab was found. It carried them farther north, and to the east still, until at last it came to a halt before an apartment house that was rather imposing, set in a street of humbler dwellings. Here, Garson paid the fare, and then helped the girl to alight, and on into the hallway. Mary went with him quite unafraid, though now with a growing curiosity. Strange as it all was, she felt that she could trust this man who had plucked her from death, who had worked over her with so much of tender kindliness. So, she waited patiently; only, watched with intentness as he pressed the button of a flat number. She observed with interest the thick, wavy gray of his hair, which contradicted pleasantly the youthfulness of his clean-shaven, resolute face, and the spare, yet well-muscled form.

The clicking of the door-latch sounded soon, and the two entered, and went slowly up three flights of stairs. On the landing beyond the third flight, the door of a rear flat stood open, and in the doorway appeared the figure of a woman.

"Well, Joe, who's the skirt?" this person demanded, as the man and his charge halted before her. Then, abruptly, the round, baby-like face of the woman puckered in amazement. Her voice rose shrill. "My Gawd, if it ain't Mary Turner!"

At that, the newcomer's eyes opened swiftly to their widest, and she stared astounded in her turn.

"Aggie!" she cried.



CHAPTER VII. WITHIN THE LAW.

In the time that followed, Mary lived in the flat which Aggie Lynch occupied along with her brother, Jim, a pickpocket much esteemed among his fellow craftsmen. The period wrought transformations of radical and bewildering sort in both the appearance and the character of the girl. Joe Garson, the forger, had long been acquainted with Aggie and her brother, though he considered them far beneath him in the social scale, since their criminal work was not of that high kind on which he prided himself. But, as he cast about for some woman to whom he might take the hapless girl he had rescued, his thoughts fell on Aggie, and forthwith his determination was made, since he knew that she was respectable, viewed according to his own peculiar lights. He was relieved rather than otherwise to learn that there was already an acquaintance between the two women, and the fact that his charge had served time in prison did not influence him one jot against her. On the contrary, it increased in some measure his respect for her as one of his own kind. By the time he had learned as well of her innocence, he had grown so interested that even her folly, as he was inclined to deem it, did not cause any wavering in his regard.

Now, at last, Mary Turner let herself drift. It seemed to her that she had abandoned herself to fate in that hour when she threw herself into the river. Afterward, without any volition on her part, she had been restored to life, and set within an environment new and strange to her, in which soon, to her surprise, she discovered a vivid pleasure. So, she fought no more, but left destiny to work its will unhampered by her futile strivings. For the first time in her life, thanks to the hospitality of Aggie Lynch, secretly reinforced from the funds of Joe Garson, Mary found herself living in luxurious idleness, while her every wish could be gratified by the merest mention of it. She was fed on the daintiest of fare, for Aggie was a sybarite in all sensuous pleasures that were apart from sex. She was clothed with the most delicate richness for the first time as to those more mysterious garments which women love, and she soon had a variety of frocks as charming as her graceful form demanded. In addition, there were as many of books and magazines as she could wish. Her mind, long starved like her body, seized avidly on the nourishment thus afforded. In this interest, Aggie had no share—was perhaps a little envious over Mary's absorption in printed pages. But for her consolation were the matters of food and dress, and of countless junketings. In such directions, Aggie was the leader, an eager, joyous one always. She took a vast pride in her guest, with the unmistakable air of elegance, and she dared to dream of great triumphs to come, though as yet she carefully avoided any suggestion to Mary of wrong-doing.

In the end, the suggestion came from Mary Turner herself, to the great surprise of Aggie, and, truth to tell, of herself.

There were two factors that chiefly influenced her decision. The first was due to the feeling that, since the world had rejected her, she need no longer concern herself with the world's opinion, or retain any scruples over it. Back of this lay her bitter sentiment toward the man who had been the direct cause of her imprisonment, Edward Gilder. It seemed to her that the general warfare against the world might well be made an initial step in the warfare she meant to wage, somehow, some time, against that man personally, in accordance with the hysterical threat she had uttered to his face.

The factor that was the immediate cause of her decision on an irregular mode of life was an editorial in one of the daily newspapers. This was a scathing arraignment of a master in high finance. The point of the writer's attack was the grim sarcasm for such methods of thievery as are kept within the law. That phrase held the girl's fancy, and she read the article again with a quickened interest. Then, she began to meditate. She herself was in a curious, indeterminate attitude as far as concerned the law. It was the law that had worked the ruin of her life, which she had striven to make wholesome. In consequence, she felt for the law no genuine respect, only detestation as for the epitome of injustice. Yet, she gave it a superficial respect, born of those three years of suffering which had been the result of the penalty inflicted on her. It was as an effect of this latter feeling that she was determined on one thing of vital importance: that never would she be guilty of anything to pit her against the law's decrees. She had known too many hours of anguish in the doom set on her life because she had been deemed a violator of the law. No, never would she let herself take any position in which the law could accuse her.... But there remained the fact that the actual cause of her long misery was this same law, manipulated by the man she hated. It had punished her, though she had been without fault. For that reason, she must always regard it as her enemy, must, indeed, hate it with an intensity beyond words—with an intensity equal to that she bore the man, Gilder. Now, in the paragraph she had just read she found a clue to suggestive thought, a hint as to a means by which she might satisfy her rancor against the law that had outraged her—and this in safety since she would attempt nought save that within the law.

Mary's heart leaped at the possibility back of those three words, "within the law." She might do anything, seek any revenge, work any evil, enjoy any mastery, as long as she should keep within the law. There could be no punishment then. That was the lesson taught by the captain in high finance. He was at pains always in his stupendous robberies to keep within the law. To that end, he employed lawyers of mighty cunning and learning to guide his steps aright in such tortuous paths.

There, then, was the secret. Why should she not use the like means? Why, indeed? She had brains enough to devise, surely. Beyond that, she needed only to keep her course most carefully within those limits of wrong-doing permitted by the statutes. For that, the sole requirement would be a lawyer equally unscrupulous and astute. At once, Mary's mind was made up. After all, the thing was absurdly simple. It was merely a matter for ingenuity and for prudence in alliance.... Moreover, there would come eventually some adequate device against her arch-enemy, Edward Gilder.

Mary meditated on the idea for many days, and ever it seemed increasingly good to her. Finally, it developed to a point where she believed it altogether feasible, and then she took Joe Garson into her confidence. He was vastly astonished at the outset and not quite pleased. To his view, this plan offered merely a fashion of setting difficulties in the way of achievement. Presently, however, the sincerity and persistence of the girl won him over. The task of convincing him would have been easier had he himself ever known the torment of serving a term in prison. Thus far, however, the forger had always escaped the penalty for his crimes, though often close to conviction. But Mary's arguments were of a compelling sort as she set them forth in detail, and they made their appeal to Garson, who was by no means lacking in a shrewd native intelligence. He agreed that the experiment should be made, notwithstanding the fact that he felt no particular enthusiasm over the proposed scheme of working. It is likely that his own strong feeling of attraction toward the girl whom he had saved from death, who now appeared before him as a radiantly beautiful young woman, was more persuasive than the excellent ideas which she presented so emphatically, and with a logic so impressive.

An agreement was made by which Joe Garson and certain of his more trusted intimates in the underworld were to put themselves under the orders of Mary concerning the sphere of their activities. Furthermore, they bound themselves not to engage in any devious business without her consent. Aggie, too, was one of the company thus constituted, but she figured little in the preliminary discussions, since neither Mary nor the forger had much respect for the intellectual capabilities of the adventuress, though they appreciated to the full her remarkable powers of influencing men to her will.

It was not difficult to find a lawyer suited to the necessities of the undertaking. Mary bore in mind constantly the high financier's reliance on the legal adviser competent to invent a method whereby to baffle the law at any desired point, and after judicious investigation she selected an ambitious and experienced Jew named Sigismund Harris, just in the prime of his mental vigors, who possessed a knowledge of the law only to be equalled by his disrespect for it. He seemed, indeed, precisely the man to fit the situation for one desirous of outraging the law remorselessly, while still retaining a place absolutely within it.

Forthwith, the scheme was set in operation. As a first step, Mary Turner became a young lady of independent fortune, who had living with her a cousin, Miss Agnes Lynch. The flat was abandoned. In its stead was an apartment in the nineties on Riverside Drive, in which the ladies lived alone with two maids to serve them. Garson had rooms in the neighborhood, but Jim Lynch, who persistently refused the conditions of such an alliance, betook himself afar, to continue his reckless gathering of other folk's money in such wise as to make him amenable to the law the very first time he should be caught at it.

A few tentative ventures resulted in profits so large that the company grew mightily enthusiastic over the novel manner of working. In each instance, Harris was consulted, and made his confidential statement as to the legality of the thing proposed. Mary gratified her eager mind by careful studies in this chosen line of nefariousness. After a few perfectly legal breach-of-promise suits, due to Aggie's winsome innocence of demeanor, had been settled advantageously out of court, Mary devised a scheme of greater elaborateness, with the legal acumen of the lawyer to endorse it in the matter of safety.

This netted thirty thousand dollars. It was planned as the swindling of a swindler—which, in fact, had now become the secret principle in Mary's morality.

A gentleman possessed of some means, none too scrupulous himself, but with high financial aspirations, advertised for a partner to invest capital in a business sure to bring large returns. This advertisement caught the eye of Mary Turner, and she answered it. An introductory correspondence encouraged her to hope for the victory in a game of cunning against cunning. She consulted with the perspicacious Mr. Harris, and especially sought from him detailed information as to partnership law. His statements gave her such confidence that presently she entered into a partnership with the advertiser. By the terms of their agreement, each deposited thirty thousand dollars to the partnership account. This sum of sixty thousand dollars was ostensibly to be devoted to the purchase of a tract of land, which should afterward be divided into lots, and resold to the public at enormous profit. As a matter of fact, the advertiser planned to make a spurious purchase of the tract in question, by means of forged deeds granted by an accomplice, thus making through fraud a neat profit of thirty thousand dollars. The issue was, however, disappointing to him in the extreme. No sooner was the sixty thousand dollars on deposit in the bank than Mary Turner drew out the whole amount, as she had a perfect right to do legally. When the advertiser learned of this, he was, naturally enough, full to overflowing with wrath. But after an interview with Harris he swallowed this wrath as best he might. He found that his adversary knew a dangerous deal as to his various swindling operations. In short, he could not go into court with clean hands, which is a prime stipulation of the law—though often honored in the breach. But the advertiser's hands were too perilously filthy, so he let himself be mulcted in raging silence.

The event established Mary as the arbiter in her own coterie. Here was, in truth, a new game, a game most entertaining, and most profitable, and not in the least risky. Immediately after the adventure with the advertiser, Mary decided that a certain General Hastings would make an excellent sacrifice on the altar of justice—and to her own financial profit. The old man was a notorious roue, of most unsavory reputation as a destroyer of innocence. It was probable that he would easily fall a victim to the ingenuous charms of Aggie. As for that precocious damsel, she would run no least risk of destruction by the satyr. So, presently, there were elaborate plottings. General Hastings met Aggie in the most casual way. He was captivated by her freshness and beauty, her demureness, her ignorance of all things vicious. Straightway, he set his snares, being himself already limed. He showered every gallant attention on the naive bread-and-butter miss, and succeeded gratifyingly soon in winning her heart—to all appearance. But he gained nothing more, for the coy creature abruptly developed most effective powers of resistance to every blandishment that went beyond strictest propriety. His ardor cooled suddenly when Harris filed the papers in a suit for ten thousand dollars damages for breach of promise.

Even while this affair was still in the course of execution, Mary found herself engaged in a direction that offered at least the hope of attaining her great desire, revenge against Edward Gilder. This opportunity came in the person of his son, Dick. After much contriving, she secured an introduction to that young man. Forthwith, she showed herself so deliciously womanly, so intelligent, so daintily feminine, so singularly beautiful, that the young man was enamored almost at once. The fact thrilled Mary to the depths of her heart, for in this son of the man whom she hated she saw the instrument of vengeance for which she had so longed. Yet, this one thing was so vital to her that she said nothing of her purposes, not even to Aggie, though that observant person may have possessed suspicions more or less near the truth.

It was some such suspicion that lay behind her speech as, in negligee, she sat cross-legged on the bed, smoking a cigarette in a very knowing way, while watching Mary, who was adjusting her hat before the mirror of her dressing-table, one pleasant spring morning.

"Dollin' up a whole lot, ain't you?" Aggie remarked, affably, with that laxity of language which characterized her natural moods.

"I have a very important engagement with Dick Gilder," Mary replied, tranquilly. She vouchsafed nothing more definite as to her intentions.

"Nice boy, ain't he?" Aggie ventured, insinuatingly.

"Oh, I suppose so," came the indifferent answer from Mary, as she tilted the picture hat to an angle a trifle more jaunty.

The pseudo cousin sniffed.

"You s'pose that, do you? Well, anyhow, he's here so much we ought to be chargin' him for his meal-ticket. And yet I ain't sure that you even know whether he's the real goods, or not."

The fair face of Mary Turner hardened the least bit. There shone an expression of inscrutable disdain in the violet eyes, as she turned to regard Aggie with a level glance.

"I know that he's the son—the only son!—of Edward Gilder. The fact is enough for me."

The adventuress of the demure face shook her head in token of complete bafflement. Her rosy lips pouted in petulant dissatisfaction.

"I don't get you, Mary," she admitted, querulously. "You never used to look at the men. The way you acted when you first run round with me, I thought you sure was a suffragette. And then you met this young Gilder—and—good-night, nurse!"

The hardness remained in Mary's face, as she continued to regard her friend. But, now, there was something quizzical in the glance with which she accompanied the monosyllable:

"Well?"

Again, Aggie shook her head in perplexity.

"His old man sends you up for a stretch for something you didn't do—and you take up with his son like——"

"And yet you don't understand!" There was scorn for such gross stupidity in the musical voice.

Aggie choked a little from the cigarette smoke, as she gave a gasp when suspicion of the truth suddenly dawned on her slow intelligence.

"My Gawd!" Her voice came in a treble shriek of apprehension. "I'm wise!"

"But you must understand this," Mary went on, with an authoritative note in her voice. "Whatever may be between young Gilder and me is to be strictly my own affair. It has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of you, or with our schemes for money-making. And, what is more, Agnes, I don't want to talk about it. But——"

"Yes?" queried Aggie, encouragingly, as the other paused. She hopefully awaited further confidences.

"But I do want to know," Mary continued with some severity, "what you meant by talking in the public street yesterday with a common pickpocket."

Aggie's childlike face changed swiftly its expression from a sly eagerness to sullenness.

"You know perfectly well, Mary Turner," she cried indignantly, "that I only said a few words in passin' to my brother Jim. And he ain't no common pickpocket. Hully Gee! He's the best dip in the business."

"But you must not be seen speaking with him," Mary directed, with a certain air of command now become habitual to her among the members of her clique. "My cousin, Miss Agnes Lynch, must be very careful as to her associates."

The volatile Agnes was restored to good humor by some subtle quality in the utterance, and a family pride asserted itself.

"He just stopped me to say it's been the best year he ever had," she explained, with ostentatious vanity.

Mary appeared sceptical.

"How can that be," she demanded, "when the dead line now is John Street?"

"The dead line!" Aggie scoffed. A peal of laughter rang merrily from her curving lips.

"Why, Jim takes lunch every day in the Wall Street Delmonico's. Yes," she went on with increasing animation, "and only yesterday he went down to Police Headquarters, just for a little excitement, 'cause Jim does sure hate a dull life. Say, he told me they've got a mat at the door with 'Welcome' on it—in letters three feet high. Now, what—do—you—think—of that!" Aggie teetered joyously, the while she inhaled a shockingly large mouthful of smoke. "And, oh, yes!" she continued happily, "Jim, he lifted a leather from a bull who was standing in the hallway there at Headquarters! Jim sure does love excitement."

Mary lifted her dark eyebrows in half-amused inquiry.

"It's no use, Agnes," she declared, though without entire sincerity; "I can't quite keep up with your thieves' argot—your slang, you know. Just what did this brother of yours do?"

"Why, he copped the copper's kale," Aggie translated, glibly.

Mary threw out her hands in a gesture of dismay.

Thereupon, the adventuress instantly assumed a most ladylike and mincing air which ill assorted with the cigarette that she held between her lips.

"He gently removed a leathern wallet," she said sedately, "containing a large sum of money from the coat pocket of a member of the detective force." The elegance of utterance was inimitably done. But in the next instant, the ordinary vulgarity of enunciation was in full play again. "Oh, Gee!" she cried gaily. "He says Inspector Burke's got a gold watch that weighs a ton, an' all set with diamon's!—which was give to 'im by—admirin' friends!... We didn't contribute."

"Given to him," Mary corrected, with a tolerant smile.

Aggie sniffed once again.

"What difference does it make?" she demanded, scornfully. "He's got it, ain't he?" And then she added with avaricious intensity: "Just as soon as I get time, I'm goin' after that watch—believe me!"

Mary shook her head in denial.

"No, you are not," she said, calmly. "You are under my orders now. And as long as you are working with us, you will break no laws."

"But I can't see——" Aggie began to argue with the petulance of a spoiled child.

Mary's voice came with a certainty of conviction born of fact.

"When you were working alone," she said gravely, did you have a home like this?"

"No," was the answer, spoken a little rebelliously.

"Or such clothes? Most of all, did you have safety from the police?"

"No," Aggie admitted, somewhat more responsively. "But, just the same, I can't see——"

Mary began putting on her gloves, and at the same time strove to give this remarkable young woman some insight into her own point of view, though she knew the task to be one well-nigh impossible.

"Agnes," she said, didactically, "the richest men in this country have made their fortunes, not because of the law, but in spite of the law. They made up their minds what they wanted to do, and then they engaged lawyers clever enough to show them how they could do it, and still keep within the law. Any one with brains can get rich in this country if he will engage the right lawyer. Well, I have the brains—and Harris is showing me the law—the wonderful twisted law that was made for the rich! Since we keep inside the law, we are safe."

Aggie, without much apprehension of the exact situation, was moved to a dimpled mirth over the essential humor of the method indicated.

"Gee, that's funny," she cried happily. "You an' me an' Joe Garson handin' it to 'em, an' the bulls can't touch us! Next thing you know, Harris will be havin' us incorporated as the American Legal Crime Society."

"I shouldn't be in the least surprised," Mary assented, as she finished buttoning her gloves. She smiled, but there was a hint of grimness in the bending of her lips. That grimness remained, as she glanced at the clock, then went toward the door of the room, speaking over her shoulder.

"And, now I must be off to a most important engagement with Mr. Dick Gilder."



CHAPTER VIII. A TIP FROM HEADQUARTERS.

Presently, when she had finished the cigarette, Aggie proceeded to her own chamber and there spent a considerable time in making a toilette calculated to set off to its full advantage the slender daintiness of her form. When at last she was gowned to her satisfaction, she went into the drawing-room of the apartment and gave herself over to more cigarettes, in an easy chair, sprawled out in an attitude of comfort never taught in any finishing school for young ladies. She at the same time indulged her tastes in art and literature by reading the jokes and studying the comic pictures in an evening paper, which the maid brought in at her request. She had about exhausted this form of amusement when the coming of Joe Garson, who was usually in and out of the apartment a number of times daily, provided a welcome diversion. After a casual greeting between the two, Aggie explained, in response to his question, that Mary had gone out to keep an engagement with Dick Gilder.

There was a little period of silence while the man, with the resolute face and the light gray eyes that shone so clearly underneath the thick, waving silver hair, held his head bent downward as if in intent thought. When, finally, he spoke, there was a certain quality in his voice that caused Aggie to regard him curiously.

"Mary has been with him a good deal lately," he said, half questioningly.

"That's what," was the curt agreement.

Garson brought out his next query with the brutal bluntness of his kind; and yet there was a vague suggestion of tenderness in his tones under the vulgar words.

"Think she's stuck on him?" He had seated himself on a settee opposite the girl, who did not trouble on his account to assume a posture more decorous, and he surveyed her keenly as he waited for a reply.

"Why not?" Aggie retorted. "Bet your life I'd be, if I had a chance. He's a swell boy. And his father's got the coin, too."

At this the man moved impatiently, and his eyes wandered to the window. Again, Aggie studied him with a swift glance of interrogation. Not being the possessor of an over-nice sensibility as to the feelings of others, she now spoke briskly.

"Joe, if there's anything on your mind, shoot it."

Garson hesitated for a moment, then decided to unburden himself, for he craved precise knowledge in this matter.

"It's Mary," he explained, with some embarrassment; "her and young Gilder."

"Well?" came the crisp question.

"Well, somehow," Garson went on, still somewhat confusedly, "I can't see any good of it, for her."

"Why?" Aggie demanded, in surprise.

Garson's manner grew easier, now that the subject was well broached.

"Old man Gilder's got a big pull," he vouchsafed, "and if he caught on to his boy's going with Mary, he'd be likely to send the police after us—strong! Believe me, I ain't looking for any trip up the river."

Aggie shook her head, quite unaffected by the man's suggestion of possible peril in the situation.

"We ain't done nothin' they can touch us for," she declared, with assurance. "Mary says so."

Garson, however, was unconvinced, notwithstanding his deference to the judgment of his leader.

"Whether we've done anything, or whether we haven't, don't matter," he objected. "Once the police set out after you, they'll get you. Russia ain't in it with some of the things I have seen pulled off in this town."

"Oh, can that 'fraid talk!" Aggie exclaimed, roughly. "I tell you they can't get us. We've got our fingers crossed."

She would have said more, but a noise at the hall door interrupted her, and she looked up to see a man in the opening, while behind him appeared the maid, protesting angrily.

"Never mind that announcing thing with me," the newcomer rasped to the expostulating servant, in a voice that suited well his thick-set figure, with the bullet-shaped head and the bull-like neck. Then he turned to the two in the drawing-room, both of whom had now risen to their feet.

"It's all right, Fannie," Aggie said hastily to the flustered maid. "You can go."

As the servant, after an indignant toss of the head, departed along the passage, the visitor clumped heavily forward and stopped in the center of the room, looking first at one and then the other of the two with a smile that was not pleasant. He was not at pains to remove the derby hat which he wore rather far back on his head. By this single sign, one might have recognized Cassidy, who had had Mary Turner in his charge on the occasion of her ill-fated visit to Edward Gilder's office, four years before, though now the man had thickened somewhat, and his ruddy face was grown even coarser.

"Hello, Joe!" he cried, familiarly. "Hello, Aggie!"

The light-gray eyes of the forger had narrowed perceptibly as he recognized the identity of the unceremonious caller, while the lines of his firmly set mouth took on an added fixity.

"Well?" he demanded. His voice was emotionless.

"Just a little friendly call," Cassidy announced, in his strident voice. "Where's the lady of the house?"

"Out." It was Aggie who spoke, very sharply.

"Well, Joe," Cassidy went on, without paying further heed to the girl for a moment, "when she comes back, just tell her it's up to her to make a get-away, and to make it quick."

But Aggie was not one to be ignored under any circumstances. Now, she spoke with some acerbity in her voice, which could at will be wondrous soft and low.

"Say!" she retorted viciously, "you can't throw any scare into us. You hadn't got anything on us. See?"

Cassidy, in response to this outburst, favored the girl with a long stare, and there was hearty amusement in his tones as he answered.

"Nothing on you, eh? Well, well, let's see." He regarded Garson with a grin. "You are Joe Garson, forger." As he spoke, the detective took a note-book from a pocket, found a page, and then read: "First arrested in 1891, for forging the name of Edwin Goodsell to a check for ten thousand dollars. Again arrested June 19, 1893, for forgery. Arrested in April, 1898, for forging the signature of Oscar Hemmenway to a series of bonds that were counterfeit. Arrested as the man back of the Reilly gang, in 1903. Arrested in 1908 for forgery."

There was no change in the face or pose of the man who listened to the reading. When it was done, and the officer looked up with a resumption of his triumphant grin, Garson spoke quietly.

"Haven't any records of convictions, have you?"

The grin died, and a snarl sprang in its stead.

"No," he snapped, vindictively. "But we've got the right dope on you, all right, Joe Garson." He turned savagely on the girl, who now had regained her usual expression of demure innocence, but with her rather too heavy brows drawn a little lower than their wont, under the influence of an emotion otherwise concealed.

"And you're little Aggie Lynch," Cassidy declared, as he thrust the note-book back into his pocket. "Just now, you're posing as Mary Turner's cousin. You served two years in Burnsing for blackmail. You were arrested in Buffalo, convicted, and served your stretch. Nothing on you? Well, well!" Again there was triumph in the officer's chuckle.

Aggie showed no least sign of perturbation in the face of this revelation of her unsavory record. Only an expression of half-incredulous wonder and delight beamed from her widely opened blue eyes and was emphasized in the rounding of the little mouth.

"Why," she cried, and now there was softness enough in the cooing notes, "my Gawd! It looks as though you had actually been workin'!"

The sarcasm was without effect on the dull sensibilities of the officer. He went on speaking with obvious enjoyment of the extent to which his knowledge reached.

"And the head of the gang is Mary Turner. Arrested four years ago for robbing the Emporium. Did her stretch of three years."

"Is that all you've got about her?" Garson demanded, with such abruptness that Cassidy forgot his dignity sufficiently to answer with an unqualified yes.

The forger continued speaking rapidly, and now there was an undercurrent of feeling in his voice.

"Nothing in your record of her about her coming out without a friend in the world, and trying to go straight? You ain't got nothing in that pretty little book of your'n about your going to the millinery store where she finally got a job, and tipping them off to where she come from?"

"Sure, they was tipped off," Cassidy answered, quite unmoved. And he added, swelling visibly with importance: "We got to protect the city."

"Got anything in that record of your'n," Garson went on venomously, "about her getting another job, and your following her up again, and having her thrown out? Got it there about the letter you had old Gilder write, so that his influence would get her canned?"

"Oh, we had her right the first time," Cassidy admitted, complacently.

Then, the bitterness of Garson's soul was revealed by the fierceness in his voice as he replied.

"You did not! She was railroaded for a job she never done. She went in honest, and she came out honest."

The detective indulged himself in a cackle of sneering merriment.

"And that's why she's here now with a gang of crooks," he retorted.

Garson met the implication fairly.

"Where else should she be?" he demanded, violently. "You ain't got nothing in that record about my jumping into the river after her?" The forger's voice deepened and trembled with the intensity of his emotion, which was now grown so strong that any who listened and looked might guess something of the truth as to his feeling toward this woman of whom he spoke. "That's where I found her—a girl that never done nobody any harm, starving because you police wouldn't give her a chance to work. In the river because she wouldn't take the only other way that was left her to make a living, because she was keeping straight!... Have you got any of that in your book?"

Cassidy, who had been scowling in the face of this arraignment, suddenly gave vent to a croaking laugh of derision.

"Huh!" he said, contemptuously. "I guess you're stuck on her, eh?"

At the words, an instantaneous change swept over Garson. Hitherto, he had been tense, his face set with emotion, a man strong and sullen, with eyes as clear and heartless as those of a beast in the wild. Now, without warning, a startling transformation was wrought. His form stiffened to rigidity after one lightning-swift step forward, and his face grayed. The eyes glowed with the fires of a man's heart in a spasm of hate. He was the embodiment of rage, as he spoke huskily, his voice a whisper that was yet louder than any shout.

"Cut that!"

The eyes of the two men locked. Cassidy struggled with all his pride against the dominant fury this man hurled on him.

"What?" he demanded, blusteringly. But his tone was weaker than its wont.

"I mean," Garson repeated, and there was finality in his accents, a deadly quality that was appalling, "I mean, cut it out—now, here, and all the time! It don't go!" The voice rose slightly. The effect of it was more penetrant than a scream. "It don't go!... Do you get me?"

There was a short interval of silence, then the officer's eyes at last fell. It was Aggie who relieved the tension of the scene.

"He's got you," she remarked, airily. "Oi, oi! He's got you!"

There were again a few seconds of pause, and then Cassidy made an observation that revealed in some measure the shock of the experience he had just undergone.

"You would have been a big man, Joe, if it hadn't been for that temper of yours. It's got you into trouble once or twice already. Some time it's likely to prove your finish."

Garson relaxed his immobility, and a little color crept into his cheeks.

"That's my business," he responded, dully.

"Anyway," the officer went on, with a new confidence, now that his eyes were free from the gaze that had burned into his soul, "you've got to clear out, the whole gang of you—and do it quick."

Aggie, who as a matter of fact began to feel that she was not receiving her due share of attention, now interposed, moving forward till her face was close to the detective's.

"We don't scare worth a cent," she snapped, with the virulence of a vixen. "You can't do anything to us. We ain't broke the law." There came a sudden ripple of laughter, and the charming lips curved joyously, as she added: "Though perhaps we have bent it a bit."

Cassidy sneered, outraged by such impudence on the part of an ex-convict.

"Don't make no difference what you've done," he growled. "Gee!" he went on, with a heavy sneer. "But things are coming to a pretty pass when a gang of crooks gets to arguing about their rights. That's funny, that is!"

"Then laugh!" Aggie exclaimed, insolently, and made a face at the officer. "Ha, ha, ha!"

"Well, you've got the tip," Cassidy returned, somewhat disconcerted, after a stolid fashion of his own. "It's up to you to take it, that's all. If you don't, one of you will make a long visit with some people out of town, and it'll probably be Mary. Remember, I'm giving it to you straight."

Aggie assumed her formal society manner, exaggerated to the point of extravagance.

"Do come again, little one," she chirruped, caressingly. "I've enjoyed your visit so much!"

But Cassidy paid no apparent attention to her frivolousness; only turned and went noisily out of the drawing-room, offering no return to her daintily inflected good-afternoon.

For her own part, as she heard the outer door close behind the detective, Aggie's expression grew vicious, and the heavy brows drew very low, until the level line almost made her prettiness vanish.

"The truck-horse detective!" she sneered. "An eighteen collar, and a six-and-a-half hat! He sure had his nerve, trying to bluff us!"

But it was plain that Garson was of another mood. There was anxiety in his face, as he stood staring vaguely out of the window.

"Perhaps it wasn't a bluff, Aggie," he suggested.

"Well, what have we done, I'd like to know?" the girl demanded, confidently. She took a cigarette and a match from the tabouret beside her, and stretched her feet comfortably, if very inelegantly, on a chair opposite.

Garson answered with a note of weariness that was unlike him.

"It ain't what you have done," he said, quietly. "It's what they can make a jury think you've done. And, once they set out to get you—God, how they can frame things! If they ever start out after Mary——" He did not finish the sentence, but sank down into his chair with a groan that was almost of despair.

The girl replied with a burst of careless laughter.

"Joe," she said gaily, "you're one grand little forger, all right, all right. But Mary's got the brains. Pooh, I'll string along with her as far as she wants to go. She's educated, she is. She ain't like you and me, Joe. She talks like a lady, and, what's a damned sight harder, she acts like a lady. I guess I know. Wake me up any old night and ask me—just ask me, that's all. She's been tryin' to make a lady out of me!"

The vivaciousness of the girl distracted the man for the moment from the gloom of his thoughts, and he turned to survey the speaker with a cynical amusement.

"Swell chance!" he commented, drily.

"Oh, I'm not so worse! Just you watch out." The lively girl sprang up, discarded the cigarette, adjusted an imaginary train, and spoke lispingly in a society manner much more moderate and convincing than that with which she had favored the retiring Cassidy. Voice, pose and gesture proclaimed at least the excellent mimic.

"How do you do, Mrs. Jones! So good of you to call!... My dear Miss Smith, this is indeed a pleasure." She seated herself again, quite primly now, and moved her hands over the tabouret appropriately to her words. "One lump, or two?... Yes, I just love bridge. No, I don't play," she continued, simpering; "but, just the same, I love it." With this absurd ending, Aggie again arranged her feet according to her liking on the opposite chair. "That's the kind of stuff she's had me doing," she rattled on in her coarser voice, "and believe me, Joe, it's damned near killing me. But all the same," she hurried on, with a swift revulsion of mood to the former serious topic, "I'm for Mary strong! You stick to her, Joe, and you'll wear diamon's.... And that reminds me! I wish she'd let me wear mine, but she won't. She says they're vulgar for an innocent country girl like her cousin, Agnes Lynch. Ain't that fierce?... How can anything be vulgar that's worth a hundred and fifty a carat?"



CHAPTER IX. A LEGAL DOCUMENT.

Mary Turner spent less than an hour in that mysteriously important engagement with Dick Gilder, of which she had spoken to Aggie. After separating from the young man, she went alone down Broadway, walking the few blocks of distance to Sigismund Harris's office. On a corner, her attention was caught by the forlorn face of a girl crossing into the side street. A closer glance showed that the privation of the gaunt features was emphasized by the scant garments, almost in tatters. Instantly, Mary's quick sympathies were aroused, the more particularly since the wretched child seemed of about the age she herself had been when her great suffering had befallen. So, turning aside, she soon caught up with the girl and spoke an inquiry.

It was the familiar story, a father out of work, a sick mother, a brood of hungry children. Some confused words of distress revealed the fact that the wobegone girl was even then fighting the final battle of purity against starvation. That she still fought on in such case proved enough as to her decency of nature, wholesome despite squalid surroundings. Mary's heart was deeply moved, and her words of comfort came with a simple sincerity that was like new life to the sorely beset waif. She promised to interest herself in securing employment for the father, such care as the mother and children might need, along with a proper situation for the girl herself. In evidence of her purpose, she took her engagement-book from her bag, and set down the street and number of the East Side tenement where the family possessed the one room that mocked the word home, and she gave a banknote to the girl to serve the immediate needs.

When she went back to resume her progress down Broadway, Mary felt herself vastly cheered by the warm glow within, which is the reward of a kindly act, gratefully received. And, on this particular morning, she craved such assuagement of her spirit, for the conscience that, in spite of all her misdeeds, still lived was struggling within her. In her revolt against a world that had wantonly inflicted on her the worst torments, Mary Turner had thought that she might safely disregard those principles in which she had been so carefully reared. She had believed that by the deliberate adoption of a life of guile within limits allowed by the law, she would find solace for her wants, while feeling that thus she avenged herself in some slight measure for the indignities she had undergone unjustly. Yet, as the days passed, days of success as far as her scheming was concerned, this brilliant woman, who had tried to deem herself unscrupulous, found that lawlessness within the law failed to satisfy something deep within her soul. The righteousness that was her instinct was offended by the triumphs achieved through so devious devices, though she resolutely set her will to suppress any spiritual rebellion.

There was, as well, another grievance of her nature, yet more subtle, infinitely more painful. This lay in her craving for tenderness. She was wholly woman, notwithstanding the virility of her intelligence, its audacity, its aggressiveness. She had a heart yearning for the multitudinous affections that are the prerogative of the feminine; she had a heart longing for love, to receive and to give in full measure.... And her life was barren. Since the death of her father, there had been none on whom she could lavish the great gifts of her tenderness. Through the days of her working in the store, circumstances had shut her out from all association with others congenial. No need to rehearse the impossibilities of companionship in the prison life. Since then, the situation had not vitally improved, in spite of her better worldly condition. For Garson, who had saved her from death, she felt a strong and lasting gratitude—nothing that relieved the longing for nobler affections. There was none other with whom she had any intimacy except that, of a sort, with Aggie Lynch, and by no possibility could the adventuress serve as an object of deep regard. The girl was amusing enough, and, indeed, a most likable person at her best. But she was, after all, a shallow-pated individual, without a shred of principle of any sort whatsoever, save the single merit of unswerving loyalty to her "pals." Mary cherished a certain warm kindliness for the first woman who had befriended her in any way, but beyond this there was no finer feeling.

Nevertheless, it is not quite accurate to say that Mary Turner had had no intimacy in which her heart might have been seriously engaged. In one instance, of recent happening, she had been much in association with a young man who was of excellent standing in the world, who was of good birth, good education, of delightful manners, and, too, wholesome and agreeable beyond the most of his class. This was Dick Gilder, and, since her companionship with him, Mary had undergone a revulsion greater than ever before against the fate thrust on her, which now at last she had chosen to welcome and nourish by acquiescence as best she might.

Of course, she could not waste tenderness on this man, for she had deliberately set out to make him the instrument of her vengeance against his father. For that very reason, she suffered much from a conscience newly clamorous. Never for an instant did she hesitate in her long-cherished plan of revenge against the one who had brought ruin on her life, yet, through all her satisfaction before the prospect of final victory after continued delay, there ran the secret, inescapable sorrow over the fact that she must employ this means to attain her end. She had no thought of weakening, but the better spirit within her warred against the lust to repay an eye for an eye. It was the new Gospel against the old Law, and the fierceness of the struggle rent her. Just now, the doing of the kindly act seemed somehow to gratify not only her maternal instinct toward service of love, but, too, to muffle for a little the rebuking voice of her inmost soul.

So she went her way more at ease, more nearly content again with herself and with her system of living. Indeed, as she was shown into the private office of the ingenious interpreter of the law, there was not a hint of any trouble beneath the bright mask of her beauty, radiantly smiling.

Harris regarded his client with an appreciative eye, as he bowed in greeting, and invited her to a seat. The lawyer was a man of fine physique, with a splendid face of the best Semitic type, in which were large, dark, sparkling eyes—eyes a Lombroso perhaps might have judged rather too closely set. As a matter of fact, Harris had suffered a flagrant injustice in his own life from a suspicion of wrong-doing which he had not merited by any act. This had caused him a loss of prestige in his profession. He presently adopted the wily suggestion of the adage, that it is well to have the game if you have the name, and he resolutely set himself to the task of making as much money as possible by any means convenient. Mary Turner as a client delighted his heart, both because of the novelty of her ideas and for the munificence of the fees which she ungrudgingly paid with never a protest. So, as he beamed on her now, and spoke a compliment, it was rather the lawyer than the man that was moved to admiration.

"Why, Miss Turner, how charming!" he declared, smiling. "Really, my dear young lady, you look positively bridal."

"Oh, do you think so?" Mary rejoined, with a whimsical pout, as she seated herself. For the moment her air became distrait, but she quickly regained her poise, as the lawyer, who had dropped back into his chair behind the desk, went on speaking. His tone now was crisply business-like.

"I sent your cousin, Miss Agnes Lynch, the release which she is to sign," he explained, "when she gets that money from General Hastings. I wish you'd look it over, when you have time to spare. It's all right, I'm sure, but I confess that I appreciate your opinion of things, Miss Turner, even of legal documents—yes, indeed, I do!—perhaps particularly of legal documents."

"Thank you," Mary said, evidently a little gratified by the frank praise of the learned gentleman for her abilities. "And have you heard from them yet?" she inquired.

"No," the lawyer replied. "I gave them until to-morrow. If I don't hear then, I shall start suit at once." Then the lawyer's manner became unusually bland and self-satisfied as he opened a drawer of the desk and brought forth a rather formidable-appearing document, bearing a most impressive seal. "You will be glad to know," he went on unctuously, "that I was entirely successful in carrying out that idea of yours as to the injunction. My dear Miss Turner," he went on with florid compliment, "Portia was a squawking baby, compared with you."

"Thank you again," Mary answered, as she took the legal paper which he held outstretched toward her. Her scarlet lips were curved happily, and the clear oval of her cheeks blossomed to a deeper rose. For a moment, her glance ran over the words of the page. Then she looked up at the lawyer, and there were new lusters in the violet eyes.

"It's splendid," she declared. "Did you have much trouble in getting it?"

Harris permitted himself the indulgence of an unprofessional chuckle of keenest amusement before he answered.

"Why, no!" he declared, with reminiscent enjoyment in his manner. "That is, not really!" There was an enormous complacency in his air over the event. "But, at the outset, when I made the request, the judge just naturally nearly fell off the bench. Then, I showed him that Detroit case, to which you had drawn my attention, and the upshot of it all was that he gave me what I wanted without a whimper. He couldn't help himself, you know. That's the long and the short of it."

That mysterious document with the imposing seal, the request for which had nearly caused a judge to fall off the bench, reposed safely in Mary's bag when she, returned to the apartment after the visit to the lawyer's office.



CHAPTER X. MARKED MONEY.

Mary had scarcely received from Aggie an account of Cassidy's threatening invasion, when the maid announced that Mr. Irwin had called.

"Show him in, in just two minutes," Mary directed.

"Who's the gink?" Aggie demanded, with that slangy diction which was her habit.

"You ought to know," Mary returned, smiling a little. "He's the lawyer retained by General Hastings in the matter of a certain breach-of-promise suit."

"Oh, you mean yours truly," Aggie exclaimed, not in the least abashed by her forgetfulness in an affair that concerned herself so closely. "Hope he's brought the money. What about it?"

"Leave the room now," Mary ordered, crisply. "When I call to you, come in, but be sure and leave everything to me. Merely follow my lead. And, Agnes—be very ingenue."

"Oh, I'm wise—I'm wise," Aggie nodded, as she hurried out toward her bedroom. "I'll be a squab—surest thing you know!"

Next moment, Mary gave a formal greeting to the lawyer who represented the man she planned to mulct effectively, and invited him to a chair near her, while she herself retained her place at the desk, within a drawer of which she had just locked the formidable-appearing document received from Harris.

Irwin lost no time in coming to the point.

"I called in reference to this suit, which Miss Agnes Lynch threatens to bring against my client, General Hastings."

Mary regarded the attorney with a level glance, serenely expressionless as far as could be achieved by eyes so clear and shining, and her voice was cold as she replied with significant brusqueness.

"It's not a threat, Mr. Irwin. The suit will be brought."

The lawyer frowned, and there was a strident note in his voice when he answered, meeting her glance with an uncompromising stare of hostility.

"You realize, of course," he said finally, "that this is merely plain blackmail."

There was not the change of a feature in the face of the woman who listened to the accusation. Her eyes steadfastly retained their clear gaze into his; her voice was still coldly formal, as before.

"If it's blackmail, Mr. Irwin, why don't you consult the police?" she inquired, with manifest disdain. Mary turned to the maid, who now entered in response to the bell she had sounded a minute before. "Fanny, will you ask Miss Lynch to come in, please?" Then she faced the lawyer again, with an aloofness of manner that was contemptuous. "Really, Mr. Irwin," she drawled, "why don't you take this matter to the police?"

The reply was uttered with conspicuous exasperation.

"You know perfectly well," the lawyer said bitterly, "that General Hastings cannot afford such publicity. His position would be jeopardized."

"Oh, as for that," Mary suggested evenly, and now there was a trace of flippancy in her fashion of speaking, "I'm sure the police would keep your complaint a secret. Really, you know, Mr. Irwin, I think you had better take your troubles to the police, rather than to me. You will get much more sympathy from them."

The lawyer sprang up, with an air of sudden determination.

"Very well, I will then," he declared, sternly. "I will!"

Mary, from her vantage point at the desk across from him, smiled a smile that would have been very engaging to any man under more favorable circumstances, and she pushed in his direction the telephone that stood there.

"3100, Spring," she remarked, encouragingly, "will bring an officer almost immediately." She leaned back in her chair, and surveyed the baffled man amusedly.

The lawyer was furious over the failure of his effort to intimidate this extraordinarily self-possessed young woman, who made a mock of his every thrust. But he was by no means at the end of his resources.

"Nevertheless," he rejoined, "you know perfectly well that General Hastings never promised to marry this girl. You know——" He broke off as Aggie entered the drawing-room,

Now, the girl was demure in seeming almost beyond belief, a childish creature, very fair and dainty, guileless surely, with those untroubled eyes of blue, those softly curving lips of warmest red and the more delicate bloom in the rounded cheeks. There were the charms of innocence and simplicity in the manner of her as she stopped just within the doorway, whence she regarded Mary with a timid, pleading gaze, her slender little form poised lightly as if for flight

"Did you want me, dear?" she asked. There was something half-plaintive in the modulated cadences of the query.

"Agnes," Mary answered affectionately, "this is Mr. Irwin, who has come to see you in behalf of General Hastings."

"Oh!" the girl murmured, her voice quivering a little, as the lawyer, after a short nod, dropped again into his seat; "oh, I'm so frightened!" She hurried, fluttering, to a low stool behind the desk, beside Mary's chair, and there she sank down, drooping slightly, and catching hold of one of Mary's hands as if in mute pleading for protection against the fear that beset her chaste soul.

"Nonsense!" Mary exclaimed, soothingly. "There's really nothing at all to be frightened about, my dear child." Her voice was that with which one seeks to cajole a terrified infant. "You mustn't be afraid, Agnes. Mr. Irwin says that General Hastings did not promise to marry you. Of course, you understand, my dear, that under no circumstances must you say anything that isn't strictly true, and that, if he did not promise to marry you, you have no case—none at all. Now, Agnes, tell me: did General Hastings promise to marry you?"

"Oh, yes—oh, yes, indeed!" Aggie cried, falteringly. "And I wish he would. He's such a delightful old gentleman!" As she spoke, the girl let go Mary's hand and clasped her own together ecstatically.

The legal representative of the delightful old gentleman scowled disgustedly at this outburst. His voice was portentous, as he put a question.

"Was that promise made in writing?"

"No," Aggie answered, gushingly. "But all his letters were in writing, you know. Such wonderful letters!" She raised her blue eyes toward the ceiling in a naive rapture. "So tender, and so—er—interesting!" Somehow, the inflection on the last word did not altogether suggest the ingenuous.

"Yes, yes, I dare say," Irwin agreed, hastily, with some evidences of chagrin. He had no intention of dwelling on that feature of the letters, concerning which he had no doubt whatsoever, since he knew the amorous General very well indeed. They would be interesting, beyond shadow of questioning, horribly interesting. Such was the confessed opinion of the swain himself who had written them in his folly—horribly interesting to all the reading public of the country, since the General was a conspicuous figure.

Mary intervened with a suavity that infuriated the lawyer almost beyond endurance.

"But you're quite sure, Agnes," she questioned gently, "that General Hastings did promise to marry you?" The candor of her manner was perfect.

And the answer of Aggie was given with a like convincing emphasis.

"Oh, yes!" she declared, tensely. "Why, I would swear to it." The limpid eyes, so appealing in their soft lusters, went first to Mary, then gazed trustingly into those of the routed attorney.

"You see, Mr. Irwin, she would swear to that," emphasized Mary.

"We're beaten," he confessed, dejectedly, turning his glance toward Mary, whom, plainly, he regarded as his real adversary in the combat on his client's behalf. "I'm going to be quite frank with you, Miss Turner, quite frank," he stated with more geniality, though with a very crestfallen air. Somehow, indeed, there was just a shade too much of the crestfallen in the fashion of his utterance, and the woman whom he addressed watched warily as he continued. "We can't afford any scandal, so we're going to settle at your own terms." He paused expectantly, but Mary offered no comment; only maintained her alert scrutiny of the man. The lawyer, therefore, leaned forward with a semblance of frank eagerness. Instantly, Aggie had become agog with greedily blissful anticipations, and she uttered a slight ejaculation of joy; but Irwin paid no heed to her. He was occupied in taking from his pocket a thick bill-case, and from this presently a sheaf of banknotes, which he laid on the desk before Mary, with a little laugh of discomfiture over having been beaten in the contest.

As he did so, Aggie thrust forth an avaricious hand, but it was caught and held by Mary before it reached above the top of the desk, and the avaricious gesture passed unobserved by the attorney.

"We can't fight where ladies are concerned," he went on, assuming, as best he might contrive, a chivalrous tone. "So, if you will just hand over General Hastings' letters, why, here's your money."

Much to the speaker's surprise, there followed an interval of silence, and his puzzlement showed in the knitting of his brows. "You have the letters, haven't you?" he demanded, abruptly.

Aggie coyly took a thick bundle from its resting place on her rounded bosom.

"They never leave me," she murmured, with dulcet passion. There was in her voice a suggestion of desolation—a desolation that was the blighting effect of letting the cherished missives go from her.

"Well, they can leave you now, all right," the lawyer remarked unsympathetically, but with returning cheerfulness, since he saw the end of his quest in visible form before him. He reached quickly forward for the packet, which Aggie extended willingly enough. But it was Mary who, with a swift movement, caught and held it.

"Not quite yet, Mr. Irwin, I'm afraid," she said, calmly.

The lawyer barely suppressed a violent ejaculation of annoyance.

"But there's the money waiting for you," he protested, indignantly.

The rejoinder from Mary was spoken with great deliberation, yet with a note of determination that caused a quick and acute anxiety to the General's representative.

"I think," Mary explained tranquilly, "that you had better see our lawyer, Mr. Harris, in reference to this. We women know nothing of such details of business settlement."

"Oh, there's no need for all that formality," Irwin urged, with a great appearance of bland friendliness.

"Just the same," Mary persisted, unimpressed, "I'm quite sure you would better see Mr. Harris first." There was a cadence of insistence in her voice that assured the lawyer as to the futility of further pretense on his part.

"Oh, I see," he said disagreeably, with a frown to indicate his complete sagacity in the premises.

"I thought you would, Mr. Irwin," Mary returned, and now she smiled in a kindly manner, which, nevertheless, gave no pleasure to the chagrined man before her. As he rose, she went on crisply: "If you'll take the money to Mr. Harris, Miss Lynch will meet you in his office at four o'clock this afternoon, and, when her suit for damages for breach of promise has been legally settled out of court, you will get the letters.... Good-afternoon, Mr. Irwin."

The lawyer made a hurried bow which took in both of the women, and walked quickly toward the door. But he was arrested before he reached it by the voice of Mary, speaking again, still in that imperturbable evenness which so rasped his nerves, for all its mellow resonance. But this time there was a sting, of the sharpest, in the words themselves.

"Oh, you forgot your marked money, Mr. Irwin," Mary said.

The lawyer wheeled, and stood staring at the speaker with a certain sheepishness of expression that bore witness to the completeness of his discomfiture. Without a word, after a long moment in which he perceived intently the delicate, yet subtly energetic, loveliness of this slender woman, he walked back to the desk, picked up the money, and restored it to the bill-case. This done, at last he spoke, with a new respect in his voice, a quizzical smile on his rather thin lips.

"Young woman," he said emphatically, "you ought to have been a lawyer." And with that laudatory confession of her skill, he finally took his departure, while Mary smiled in a triumph she was at no pains to conceal, and Aggie sat gaping astonishment over the surprising turn of events.

It was the latter volatile person who ended the silence that followed on the lawyer's going.

"You've darn near broke my heart," she cried, bouncing up violently, "letting all that money go out of the house.... Say, how did you know it was marked?"

"I didn't," Mary replied, blandly; "but it was a pretty good guess, wasn't it? Couldn't you see that all he wanted was to get the letters, and have us take the marked money? Then, my simple young friend, we would have been arrested very neatly indeed—for blackmail."

Aggie's innocent eyes rounded in an amazed consternation, which was not at all assumed.

"Gee!" she cried. "That would have been fierce! And now?" she questioned, apprehensively.

Mary's answer repudiated any possibility of fear.

"And now," she explained contentedly, "he really will go to our lawyer. There, he will pay over that same marked money. Then, he will get the letters he wants so much. And, just because it's a strictly business transaction between two lawyers, with everything done according to legal ethics——"

"What's legal ethics?" Aggie demanded, impetuously. "They sound some tasty!" With the comment, she dropped weakly into a chair.

Mary laughed in care-free enjoyment, as well she might after winning the victory in such a battle of wits.

"Oh," she said, happily, "you just get it legally, and you get twice as much!"

"And it's actually the same old game!" Aggie mused. She was doing her best to get a clear understanding of the matter, though to her it was all a mystery most esoteric.

Mary reviewed the case succinctly for the other's enlightenment.

"Yes, it's the same game precisely," she affirmed. "A shameless old roue makes love to you, and he writes you a stack of silly letters."

The pouting lips of the listener took on a pathetic droop, and her voice quivered as she spoke with an effective semblance of virginal terror.

"He might have ruined my life!"

Mary continued without giving much attention to these histrionics.

"If you had asked him for all this money for the return of his letters, it would have been blackmail, and we'd have gone to jail in all human probability. But we did no such thing—no, indeed! What we did wasn't anything like that in the eyes of the law. What we did was merely to have your lawyer take steps toward a suit for damages for breach of promise of marriage for the sum of ten thousand dollars. Then, his lawyer appears in behalf of General Hastings, and there follow a number of conferences between the legal representatives of the opposing parties. By means of these conferences, the two legal gentlemen run up very respectable bills of expenses. In the end, we get our ten thousand dollars, and the flighty old General gets back his letters.... My dear," Mary concluded vaingloriously, "we're inside the law, and so we're perfectly safe. And there you are!"



CHAPTER XI. THE THIEF.

Mary remained in joyous spirits after her victorious matching of brains against a lawyer of high standing in his profession. For the time being, conscience was muted by gratified ambition. Her thoughts just then were far from the miseries of the past, with their evil train of consequences in the present. But that past was soon to be recalled to her with a vividness most terrible.

She had entered the telephone-booth, which she had caused to be installed out of an extra closet of her bedroom for the sake of greater privacy on occasion, and it was during her absence from the drawing-room that Garson again came into the apartment, seeking her. On being told by Aggie as to Mary's whereabouts, he sat down to await her return, listening without much interest to the chatter of the adventuress.... It was just then that the maid appeared.

"There's a girl wants to see Miss Turner," she explained.

The irrepressible Aggie put on her most finically elegant air.

"Has she a card?" she inquired haughtily, while the maid tittered appreciation.

"No," was the answer. "But she says it's important. I guess the poor thing's in hard luck, from the look of her," the kindly Fannie added.

"Oh, then she'll be welcome, of course," Aggie declared, and Garson nodded in acquiescence. "Tell her to come in and wait, Fannie. Miss Turner will be here right away." She turned to Garson as the maid left the room. "Mary sure is an easy boob," she remarked, cheerfully. "Bless her soft heart!"

A curiously gentle smile of appreciation softened the immobility of the forger's face as he again nodded assent.

"We might just as well pipe off the skirt before Mary gets here," Aggie suggested, with eagerness.

A minute later, a girl perhaps twenty years of age stepped just within the doorway, and stood there with eyes downcast, after one swift, furtive glance about her. Her whole appearance was that of dejection. Her soiled black gown, the cringing posture, the pallor of her face, proclaimed the abject misery of her state.

Aggie, who was not exuberant in her sympathies for any one other than herself, addressed the newcomer with a patronizing inflection, modulated in her best manner.

"Won't you come in, please?" she requested.

The shrinking girl shot another veiled look in the direction of the speaker.

"Are you Miss Turner?" she asked, in a voice broken by nervous dismay.

"Really, I am very sorry," Aggie replied, primly; "but I am only her cousin, Miss Agnes Lynch. But Miss Turner is likely to be back any minute now."

"Can I wait?" came the timid question.

"Certainly," Aggie answered, hospitably. "Please sit down."

As the girl obediently sank down on the nearest chair, Garson addressed her sharply, so that the visitor started uneasily at the unexpected sound.

"You don't know Miss Turner?"

"No," came the faint reply.

"Then, what do you want to see her about?"

There was a brief pause before the girl could pluck up courage enough for an answer. Then, it was spoken confusedly, almost in a whisper.

"She once helped a girl friend of mine, and I thought—I thought——"

"You thought she might help you," Garson interrupted.

But Aggie, too, possessed some perceptive powers, despite the fact that she preferred to use them little in ordinary affairs.

"You have been in stir—prison, I mean." She hastily corrected the lapse into underworld slang.

Came a distressed muttering of assent from the girl.

"How sad!" Aggie remarked, in a voice of shocked pity for one so inconceivably unfortunate. "How very, very sad!"