was something in the voice of Caroline that made Ruth look down sharply to her face, but the girl was clever enough to mask her excitement and delight.
“Afterward, when you think over what he has said, it isn’t a great deal, but at the moment he seems to know a great deal—about what’s going on inside one, don’t you think, Caroline?”
These continual appeals for advice, appeals from the infallible Ruth Tolliver, set the heart of Caroline beating. There was most certainly something in the wind.
“I think he does,” agreed Caroline, masking her eyes. “He has a way, when he looks at you, of making you feel that he isn’t thinking of anything else in the world but you.”
“Does he have that same effect on every one?” asked Ruth. She added, after a moment of thought, “Yes, I suppose it’s just a habit of his. I wish I knew.”
“Why?” queried Caroline, unable to refrain from the stinging little question.
“Oh, for no good reason—just that he’s an odd character. In my work, you know, one has to study character. Ronicky Doone is a different sort of man, don’t you think?”
“Very different, dear.”
Then a great inspiration came to Caroline. Ruth was a key which, she knew, could unlock nearly any door in the house of John Mark.
“Do you know what we are going to do?” she asked gravely, rising.
“Well?”
“We’re going to open that door together, and we’re going down the stairs —together.”
“Together? But we—Don’t you know John Mark has given orders —”
“That I’m not to leave the room. What difference does that make? They won’t dare stop us if you are with me, leading the way.”
“Caroline, are you mad? When I come back—”
“You’re not coming back.”
“Not coming back!”
“No, you’re going on with me!”
She took Ruth by the arms and turned her until the light struck into her eyes. Ruth Tolliver, aghast at this sudden strength in one who had always been a meek follower, obeyed without resistance.
“But where?” she demanded.
“Where I’m going.”
“What?”
“To Ronicky Doone, my dear. Don’t you see?”
The insistence bewildered Ruth Tolliver. She felt herself driven irresistibly forward, with or without her own will.
“Caroline,” she protested, trying feebly to free herself from the commanding hands and eyes of her companion, “are you quite mad? Go to him? Why should I? How can I?”
“Not as I’m going to Bill Gregg, with my heart in my hands, but to ask Ronicky Doone—bless him!—to take you away somewhere, so that you can begin a new life. Isn’t that simple?”
“Ask charity of a stranger?”
“You know he isn’t a stranger, and you know it isn’t charity. He’ll be happy. He’s the kind that’s happy when he’s being of use to others?”
“Yes,” answered Ruth Tolliver, “of course he is.”
“And you’d trust him?”
“To the end of the world. But to leave—”
“Ruth, you’ve kept cobwebs before your eyes so long that you don’t see what’s happening around you. John Mark hypnotizes you. He makes you think that the whole world is bad, that we are simply making capital out of our crimes. As a matter of fact, the cold truth is that he has made me a thief, Ruth, and he has made you something almost as bad—a gambler!”
The follower had become the leader, and she was urging Ruth Tolliver slowly to the door. Ruth was protesting—she could not throw herself on the kindness of Ronicky Doone—it could not be done. It would be literally throwing herself at his head. But here the door opened, and she allowed herself to be led out into the hall. They had not made more than half a dozen steps down its dim length when the guard hurried toward them.
“Talk to him,” whispered Caroline Smith. “He’s come to stop me, and you’re the only person who can make him let me pass on!”
The guard hurriedly came up to them. “Sorry,” he said. “Got an idea you’re going downstairs, Miss Smith.”
“Yes,” she said faintly.
The fellow grinned. “Not yet. You’ll stay up here till the chief gives the word. And I got to ask you to step back into your room, and step quick.” His voice grew harsh, and he came closer. “He told me straight, you’re not to come out.”
Caroline had shrunk back, and she was on the verge of turning when the arm of Ruth was passed strongly around her shoulders and stayed her.
“She’s going with me,” she told John Mark’s bulldog. “Does that make a difference to you?”
He ducked his head and grinned feebly in his anxiety. “Sure it makes a difference. You go where you want, any time you want, but this—”
“I say she’s going with me, and I’m responsible for her.”
She urged Caroline forward, and the latter made a step, only to find that she was directly confronted by the guard.
“I got my orders,” he said desperately to Ruth.
“Do you know who I am?” she asked hotly.
“I know who you are,” he answered, “and, believe me, I would not start bothering you none, but I got to keep this lady back. I got the orders.”
“They’re old orders,” insisted Ruth Tolliver, “and they have been changed.”
“Not to my knowing,” replied the other, less certain in his manner.
Ruth seized the critical moment to say: “Walk on, Caroline. If he blocks your way—” She did not need to finish the sentence, for, as Caroline started on, the guard slunk sullenly to one side of the corridor.
“It ain’t my doings,” he said. “But they got two bosses in this joint, and one of them is a girl. How can a gent have any idea which way he ought to step in a pinch? Go on, Miss Smith, but you’ll be answered for!”
They hardly heard the last of these words, as they turned down the stairway, hurrying, but not fast enough to excite the suspicion of the man behind them.
“Oh, Ruth,” whispered Caroline Smith. “Oh, Ruth!”
“It was close,” said Ruth Tolliver, “but we’re through. And, now that I’m about to leave it, I realize how I’ve
