The clerk who brought in the little slip of paper was both timid and apologetic. He felt himself between two fires. The young lady outside had been a little more than insistent. The man into whose presence he had come was one who never forgave a mistake.

"You will pardon me, sir," he said. "I hope that I have not done wrong. The young lady outside positively declined to go away until she had seen you. I thought that I had better at least bring you in her name. I remembered that a few weeks ago you saw a gentleman of the same name, although it was one of your busiest mornings."

Deane held out his hand, frowning. "A young lady," he remarked shortly. "Well?"

He took the little slip of paper into his hands, and read—Winifred Rowan. He looked up into the clerk's impassive face, and back again at the slip of paper. "The young lady is waiting outside?" he asked.

"She is outside, sir," the clerk answered. "I explained to her that you were not in the habit of seeing any callers except by appointment, and I begged her to write and fix a time, if she really had business with you. She declared, however, that the matter was an urgent one. Mr. Sawday and I both heard what she had to say, sir, and we thought it best that I should bring you in her name."

Deane nodded slowly. "I daresay you were right, Gray," he said. "Since the young lady is so persistent, you had better show her in. See that I am not disturbed again this afternoon, however. I have a good deal to do."

The clerk departed with a great weight off his mind. It was obvious that he had done the right thing. He left the door ajar, and Deane sat with his hands clenching the sides of his luxuriously padded writing chair. Winifred Rowan! It was a relative, then,—most likely the sister of whom he had spoken. What was he to say or do? How much was he to admit? Perhaps she had brought him a message. Perhaps she could tell him the one thing which he was on fire to know. Winifred Rowan! Half unconsciously he uttered the name aloud. What sort of a woman would she be, or girl, or child? He had no knowledge of Rowan save as a fellow adventurer, a seeker after fortune in a strange land, a brave man, willing always to take his life into his hands if the goal were worthy. Perhaps it might be that she had been with him. Perhaps she was bringing a message.

He heard the murmur of voices outside. The door was pushed open. The clerk stood on one side.

"This is the young lady, sir," he announced,—"Miss Winifred Rowan."

Deane rose for a moment to his feet. The clerk, with a little deferential movement, closed the door and departed. They were alone in the room together. Deane, whose self-control was one of the personal characteristics which had counted for something in his rapid access to prosperity, felt a nerveless exclamation break from his lips. The girl who came so slowly into the room seemed so perfectly to represent what Rowan himself might have become. She was an idealized likeness of the man by whose side he had fought and suffered and rejoiced, the man who only a few weeks ago had stood in her place and made his desperate appeal,—an idealized likeness, perhaps, in more ways than one. She was younger, and the stress of life had only lately set its mark upon her. She was fair, as he was fair, with gray-blue eyes, brown hair, and quivering lips, a figure slim and yet pliant, a manner, even in silence, appealing,—enticing. Deane felt himself curiously moved at the sight of her. Then he remembered suddenly how great was his need of self-control. She was the sister of this man who lay under sentence of death. Perhaps she had come to plead for his help. He must be careful. All the time he must be careful!

"You wish to see me?" he asked, a little brusquely. "I am Stirling Deane. Will you take a chair, and tell me in as few words as you can what you want?"

She ignored his gesture of invitation. She came on until she had reached the table before which he was seated. Then she leaned across, and the light of her eyes, the very insistence of her presence, seemed like things from which no escape was possible.

"Mr. Deane," she said, "I am Basil Rowan's sister. I have come from the Old Bailey prison. I have come," she added, with faltering voice, and a sudden new terror in her face, "from the condemned cell."

Deane had a reserve stock of courage to draw upon, and he drew upon it freely. He looked at her with upraised eyebrows. "You have come to me," he repeated. "Why?"

"First of all, then," she answered, "I will tell you why."

"I think," he interrupted, "that you had better take a seat."

She seemed, indeed, in need of some support. She sank into the chair which he had indicated. It was close to his side, and yet placed so that the light which fell upon her face left him in the shadow.

"You have come from your brother," he said. "Do I understand that he sent you—that he knew you were coming to me?"

"Yes!" she answered. "He told me to be very careful, to be sure that no one else knew, and never to mention your name, but I have come at his bidding."

"Very well," Deane said, "I shall be glad to hear your message."

"He gave me no explanation," she said. "He allowed me to ask for none. He told me to come to you and say this. There is no one," she asked, in a lower tone, looking nervously around, "who could possibly overhear us?"

"Not a soul."

"He told me to say," she continued, leaning forward, and with her eyes suddenly a little distended, "that he had no difficulty in finding the man of whom you two had spoken—the man whom you used to call Bully Sinclair. He spent the evening with him, drank with him, went back to his hotel by invitation. Then he tried very carefully to open up negotiations. Sinclair became at once suspicious. He was very violent, and declined to discuss the matter at all. He swore all the time that he had been robbed, and that he was going to have his revenge. My brother tried to reason with him, and in the end they quarrelled. It was Sinclair who struck Basil. My brother only returned the blow. And then he told me to say that before he could search him, before he could search the room, he found that the man was dead."

"Anything else?" Deane asked.

"He told me to say that any papers which the man Sinclair might have had must be in the room among his effects, which have all been put together, and are still there, locked up, waiting for someone to come and claim them. He told me to say that he had done his best, and that whatever the consequences might be he was ready to face them. If you cared to run risks, the number of the room at the Universal Hotel is 27. It is locked and guarded, but there might be ways. That is what he said."

Deane leaned a little forward across the table. "But of himself?" he demanded. "Did he say nothing of himself?"

She shook her head. "It is wonderful," she said, "but he never thinks of himself. He is more composed, more cheerful, than when I bade him good-night at Southampton, the day he left home. He made me promise that I would tell you these things first, before I uttered a word on my own account. I have kept my promise. You understand what I have told you?"

"Perfectly," Deane answered.

"Then I am going to speak to you now on my own account," she said, raising her eyes to his. "Mr. Deane, I do not pretend to be a clever person, but one thing is perfectly clear to me. Basil entered into this adventure for your sake. Your name was never mentioned in the trial, and they all seem to have believed that it was to rob Sinclair, and for nothing else, that Basil went there that night. Mr. Deane, I don't believe it. His quarrel with Sinclair, and its awful termination, was an accident. You must come forward and say that he went there to serve you, and not for purposes of robbery. It is for you to save his life. You can do it, and he is my only brother."

Deane's eyebrows came a little closer together. The girl who looked at him wondered no more at the hopeless way in which her brother had spoken of this man. His face was as though it were carved out of a stone.

"Miss Rowan," he said, "if there is anything which I can do for your brother, I will do it, for the sake of the days when we lived together, and when we were so near the very heart of life and death. But I tell you frankly that I see very little chance of successful intervention on my part. It takes a good deal in this country to stay the arm of the law, and your brother has grievously offended against it."

She struck the table before which he sat, with the palm of her hand. "If he did," she cried, "it was for your sake! I am sure of it! He went to do your bidding, and you must save him!"

"May I ask," said Deane, "why you are so sure that he went to do my bidding?"

"Yes! Ask, if you will, and I will answer you. I know it because this was the real point of all his message to you. This was what I had to say. This is really why I have come. The document—the document, mind,—he said no more, but he told me to make this very clear to you—the document is in a worn leather case, sewn inside the breast pocket of the coat Sinclair was wearing when he died."

Deane drew a little breath. "Young lady," he said, "it seems to me that you have been unnecessarily prolix. Your brother sent you here to tell me this?"

"Yes!"

"He did not send you here," Deane continued, "to beg for help—to waste my time in purposeless recriminations?"

"No!" she answered faintly.

"He knew very well," Deane continued, "that no mortal man can help him. The trial is over and the case is lost. The only thing to work for now is a reprieve."

"But that is not what I want," she interrupted. "He must be pardoned!"

"That," answered Deane, "is impossible. Neither I nor anyone breathing can work miracles."

She leaned towards him with accusing eyes. "But it was you," she declared,—"it was you for whom he undertook this enterprise!"

Deane shrugged his shoulders. "My dear young lady," he said, "you are mistaken. I cannot explain to you yet the full significance of those various messages which you have brought me from your brother, but believe me, what he did, he did knowing well the risks he undertook, and without any thought or hope of aid from me if he should fail. I will be quite honest with you, if you like. I will tell you the exact truth. Your brother and Sinclair were once friends. Sinclair and I were always enemies. There was a little matter of business open between us, and I thought that your brother might very well arrange it. I had no idea of his quarrelling with Sinclair. I did not encourage him to do so in any way."

"You sent him there," she persisted doggedly.

"I send messengers to every part of the world," Deane answered, "but I do not incite them to enter into murderous quarrels with the people whom they go to see. I will do what I can for your brother, but it must be in my own way."

"You will be able at least to save him from—from—"

Deane held out his hand. "Of course," he answered. "You need not think about that. His health alone would be sufficient to put that out of the question. What I can do for him, I will. I promise you that."

The girl rose up, and held out her hands a little piteously. "Remember," she begged, "I have no one else to go to, no other hope but in you. If I lose Basil, I shall be alone in the world!"

The tears were in her eyes. Every line of her face, every feature, seemed to be pleading with him. Deane led her to the door himself. His tone was unusually kind.

"I will do my best," he promised once more.