MOTIONLESS, save that his lips twitched queerly, Dave Henderson stood erect, and stared down into the pillaged dress-suit case. And then his hands clenched slowly—tightened—and grew white across the knuckles.

The money was gone! The agony of those days and nights, when, wounded, he had fled from the police, the five years of prison torment which he had endured, seemed to pass with lightning swiftness in review before him—and to mock him, and to become a ghastly travesty. The money was gone!

The pillaged dress-suit case seemed to leer and mock at him, too. He might have saved himself that little debate, which he had not settled, and which was based upon a certain element of ethics that involved the suggestion of charity. It was settled for him now. He owed Millman now one hundred thousand dollars, only the choice as to whether he would pay it or not was no longer his, and——

Damn it! The money was gone! Could he not grasp that one, single, concrete, vital fact, and act upon it, without standing here, with his brain, like some hapless yokel's, agog and maundering? The money was gone! Gone! Where? When? How? He could only have been asleep for a short time, surely. He wrenched his watch suddenly from his pocket. Three o'clock! It was three o'clock in the morning! Five hours! He had been asleep five hours, then! He must have slept very soundly that any one could have entered the room without arousing him!

His lips hardened. He was alert enough now, both mentally and physically. He stepped over to the door. It was still locked. His eyes swept around the room. The window, then! What about the window?

He felt suddenly for his money-belt beneath his underclothing, as he started across the room. The belt was there. That, at least, was safe. A twisted smile came to his lips. Naturally! His brain was exhibiting some glimmer of sense and cohesion now! It was evident enough that no one, since no one knew anything about it, had been specifically after that package of banknotes. It could only have been the work of a sneak thief—who had probably stumbled upon the greatest stroke of luck in his whole abandoned career. It was undoubtedly a quarter of the city wherein sneak thieves were bred! The man would obviously not have been fool enough, with a fortune already in his possession, to have risked the frisking of his, Dave Henderson's, sleeping person! Was the man, then, an inmate of The Iron Tavern, say, that greasy waiter, for instance; or had he gained entrance from outside; or, since the theft might have taken place hours ago, was it a predatory hanger-on at the bar who had sneaked his way upstairs, and——

The window, too, was locked! It was queer! Both window and door locked! How had the man got in—and got out again?

Mechanically, he unlocked and raised the window—and with a quick jerk of his body forward leaned out excitedly. Was this the answer—this platform of a fire escape that ran between his window and the next? But his window had been locked!

He stood there hesitant. Should he arouse Dago George? He could depend upon and trust Dago George, thanks to Nicolo Capriano; but to go to Dago George meant that confidences must be led up to which he desired to give to no man. His brain seemed suddenly to become frantic. The money was gone—his, or Millman's, or the devil's, it didn't matter which now—the money was gone, swallowed up in the black of that night out there, without a clue that offered him a suggestion even on which to act. But he couldn't stand here inactive like a fool, could he? Nor—his brain jeered at him now—could he go out and prowl around the city streets, and ask each passer-by if he or she had seen a package of banknotes whose sum was one hundred thousand dollars! What else was there, then, to do, except to arouse Dago George? Dago George, from what Nicolo Capriano had said, would have many strings to pull—underground strings. That was it—underground strings! It wasn't a police job!

He turned from the window, took a step back across the room, and halted again abruptly. What was that? It came again—a faint, low, rustling sound, and it seemed to come from the direction of the fire escape.

In an instant he was back at the window, but this time he crouched down at the sill. A second passed while he listened, and from the edge of the sash strained his eyes out into the darkness, and then his hand crept into his side pocket and came out with his revolver. Some one, a dark form, blacker than the night shadows out there, was crawling from the next window to the fire escape.

Dave Henderson's lips thinned. Just a second more until that “some one” was half-way out and half-way in, and at a disadvantage and—now!

With a spring, lithe and quick as a cat, Dave Henderson was through the window, and the dark form was wriggling and squirming in his grasp, and a low cry came—and Dave Henderson swore sharply under his breath.

It was a woman! A woman! Well, that didn't matter! One hundred thousand dollars was gone from his dress-suit case, and this woman was crawling to the fire escape from the next room at three o'clock in the morning—that was what mattered!

They were on the iron platform now, and he pushed her none too gently along it toward the window of his own room—into the light. And then his hands dropped from her as though suddenly bereft of power, and as suddenly lifted again, and, almost fierce in their intensity, gripped at her shoulders, and forced her face more fully into the light.

“Teresa!” he whispered hoarsely. “You—Teresa!”

She was trying to smile, but it was a tremulous effort. The great, dark eyes, out of a face that was ivory white, lifted to his, and faltered, and dropped again.

“It's you, Teresa—isn't it?” His voice, his face, his eyes, were full of incredulous wonder.

Her lips were still quivering in their smile. She nodded her head in a sort of quaint, wistful way.

The blood was pounding and surging in his veins. Teresa! Teresa was here, standing here before him! Not that phantom picture that had come to him so often in the days and nights since he had left San Francisco—the glorious eyes, half veiled by the long lashes, though they would not look at him, were real; this touch of his hands upon her shoulders, this touch that thrilled him, was real, and——

Slowly his hands fell away from her; and as though to kill and stifle joy, and mock at gladness, and make sorry sport of ecstasy, there came creeping upon him doubt, black, ugly, and bitter as gall.

Yes, it was Teresa! And at sight of her there had come suddenly and fully, irrefutably, the knowledge that he cared for her; that love, which comes at no man's bidding, had come to him for her. Yes, it was Teresa! But what was she doing here? In view of that money, gone in the last few hours from his dress-suit case, what could Teresa Capriano be doing here in the next room to his?

He laughed a little, low, sharply—and turned his head away. Love! How could he love—and doubt! How could he love—and condemn the one he loved unheard! He looked at her again now; and the blood in his veins, as though over-riding now some obstacle that had dammed its flow, grew swifter, and his pulse quickened. How could he doubt—Teresa!

But it was Teresa who spoke.

“We are standing here in the light, and we can be seen from everywhere around,” she said in a low tone. “You—there is danger. Turn the light off in your room.”

“Yes,” he said mechanically, and stepping back into his room, turned off the light. He was beside her again the next instant. Danger! His mind was mulling over that. What danger? Why had she said that? What was its significance in respect of her presence here? The questions came crowding to his lips. “Danger? What do you mean?” he asked tensely. “And how did you get here, Teresa? And why? Was it your father who sent you? There is something that has gone wrong? The police——”

She shook her head.

“My father died the night you went away,” she said.

He drew back, startled. Nicolo Capriano—dead!

Her father—dead! He could not seem somehow to visualize Nicolo Capriano as one dead. The man's mentality had so seemed to triumph over his physical ills, that, sick though he had been, Nicolo Capriano had seemed to personify and embody vitality and life itself. Dead! He drew in his breath sharply. Then she was alone, this little figure standing here in the darkness beside him, high up here in the world of night, with a void beneath and around them, strangely, curiously cut off, even in a physical sense, from any other human touch or sympathy—but his.

He reached out and found her hand, and laid it between both his own.

“I—I'm no good at words,” he fumbled. “They—they won't come. But he was the best friend I ever, had in life, too. And so I——”

“Don't say that! Don't! You mustn't! Do you hear, you mustn't!” Her hand, that lay in his, was suddenly clenched, and she was striving to draw it away. “It isn't true! I—that is why I came—I came to tell you. He was not your friend. He—he betrayed you.”

He held her hand tighter—in a grip that made her efforts to escape pitifully impotent. And, almost fiercely, he drew her closer, trying to read her face in the darkness.

“He betrayed me! Nicolo Capriano betrayed me!” His mind was suddenly a riot. Incredulity and amazement mingled with a sickening fear that her words were literally true—the money was gone! And yet—and yet—Nicolo Capriano—a traitor! His words rasped now. “Do you know what you are saying, Teresa? Quick! Answer me! Do you know what you are saying?”

“I know only too well.” Her voice had broken a little now. “I know that the money was taken from your room to-night. Please let my hand go. I—you will hate me in, a moment—for—for, after all, I am his daughter. Will you please let me go, and I will tell you.”

Mechanically he released her.

She turned half away from him, and leaned on the iron hand-rail of the platform, staring down into the blackness beneath her.

“Dago George took it—an hour ago,” she said.

“Dago George!” Dave Henderson straightened. “Ah, so it was Dago George, was it!” He laughed with sudden menace, and turned impulsively toward the window of his room.

“Wait!” she said, and laid a hand detainingly upon his sleeve. “The money, I am sure, is safe where it is until daylight, anyway. I—I have more to tell you. It—it is not easy to tell. I—I am his daughter. Dago George was one of my father's accomplices in the old days in San Francisco. That letter which I wrote for my father meant nothing that it said, it contained a secret code that made you a marked man from the moment you delivered it here, and——”

“You, too!” There was bitter hurt in Dave Henderson's voice. And then suddenly he threw his shoulders back. “I don't believe you!” he flung out fiercely. “I don't understand how you got here, or what you are doing here, but you wrote that letter—and I don't believe it was a trap. Do you understand, Teresa—I don't believe you!”

She raised her head—and it seemed that even in the darkness he caught the sudden film of tears in her eyes, and saw the lips part in a quivering smile. She shook her head slowly then.

“It was not what I wrote,” she said. “It was what my—what he added afterwards when he signed it. Con amore—that was the secret code, and——”

“But you did not know that, then—Teresa!” There was a strange, triumphant uplift in his voice. “I remember! It was while you were out of the room. Did I not say I did not believe you!”

Her lips were still quivering, but the smile was gone. “No, I did not know then,” she said. “But his shame is my shame, nothing can alter that—I am his daughter. I did not know it until after you had gone—and then—my father had a—a sudden attack—and that night he died. I—there was only one thing that I could do. I had no way of warning you except to try and get here before you did, or at least to get here before Dago George had gone too far. There—there were things I had to do in San Francisco—and then I came as quickly as I could. I got here to-night. I found that you were already here—just a little ahead of me, and that you had given Dago George the letter. I had only one chance then—to make Dago George believe that I had come, since my father was dead, to carry on the plot against you where my father had left off. Dago George had no suspicions. He knew me.” Her voice held a sudden merciless note. “I was a Capriano. He told me that you were upstairs here, drugged, and he gave me the room next to yours.”

“Drugged!” Dave Henderson passed his hand across his eyes. That accounted for a great deal! He remembered the slight headache with which he had awakened; he was suddenly conscious of it now. “Drugged!” he repeated.

“In a way,” she said, “I was too late. But Dago George, of course, did not know any details, and he had not gone any further than that. He had just left you in your room when I came. He had not, of course, heard from my father, since my father was dead, and he drugged you so that, during the night, he could have free access to your room and your belongings and find out what he could about you. I—I thought to turn him from that purpose by telling him enough of the truth to make him content to wait patiently and watch your movements until you had the money in your possession. Do—do you understand? He said the effects of the drug would wear off in a few hours, and I meant to warn you then, and—and we would both make our escape from here. I—that is why I told you there was danger. Dago George would stop at nothing. He has a band of men here in New York that I know are as unscrupulous as he is; and this place here, I am only too sure, has been the trap for more than one of his victims.”

She paused. Her voice, though guarded, had grown excited, and a little breathless.

It was a moment before Dave Henderson spoke.

“And you?” His voice was hoarse. “If Dago George had found you out you wouldn't have had a chance for your life! And you knew that?”

“Yes,” she said quietly, “I knew that. But that has no place here. There was no other way.”

“And you did this for me?” His hands reached out, and fell upon the girl's slight shoulders, and tightened there. “You did this for me—Teresa?”

“I did it because there was no other thing to do, because—because”—her voice lost its steadiness—-“it was my father's guilt.”

He drew her closer, with a strange, gentle, remorseless strength.

“And for no other reason—Teresa?” he whispered. “For only that? If it had not been your father? If he had had nothing to do with it? If it had been only me?” Her face was very close to his now, so close that the quick, sudden panting of her breath was upon his cheek, so close that her lips were almost warm upon his own.

She put out her hands, and pressed them with a curious gentleness against his face to ward him off.

“Don't!” Her voice was very low. “Have you forgotten that I am the daughter of the man who meant—who meant perhaps to take your life; that I am the daughter of a criminal?”

“And I”—he had her wrists now, and was holding the soft, trembling hands against his cheeks—“I am a thief.”

“Oh, don't!” She was almost crying now. “You—you don't understand. There is more. I meant, if I could, to take that money from you myself.”

In sheer astonishment he let her go, and drew back a step. She seemed to waver unsteadily on her feet there in the darkness for an instant, and her hand groped out to the platform railing for support; and then suddenly she stood erect, her face full toward him, her head thrown back a little on her shoulders.

“I meant to get it, if I could—to give it back to those to whom it belongs. And I still mean to.” Her voice was quiet now, quivering a little, but bravely under control, “All my life has been a lie. I lived a lie the night I let you go away without a word of protest about what you were going to do. I do not mean to throw the blame upon my father, but with his death all those old ties were broken. Will you try to understand me? I must either now go on in the old way, or go straight with my conscience and with God. I could not bargain with God or my conscience. It was all or nothing. I had a share in enabling you to hoodwink the police. Therefore if you came into possession of that money again, I was as much a thief as you were, and as guilty. But I owed it to you, above all other things, to warn you of your danger; and so I came here—to warn you first—and afterwards, when you were safe from Dago George's reach, to watch you, and get the money myself if I could. Do you understand?

“When I came here to-night, I did not think that you had yet got the money; but something that Dago George said made me think that perhaps you had, and that perhaps he thought so, too. And so I sat there in my room in the darkness waiting until all was quiet in the house, and I could steal into your room and search, if I could get in through either door or window; and then, whether I got in or not, or whether the search was successful or not, I meant to wait until the drug had worn itself off sufficiently to enable me to arouse you, and tell you to get away.

“And then, I do not know what time it was, I heard some one steal up the stairs and go to the door of your room, and work at the lock very, very quietly, and go into your room, and move around in there. I was listening then with my ear to the partition, and I could just make out the sounds, no more. I should never have heard anything had I been asleep; there was never enough noise to have awakened me.

“The footsteps went downstairs, then, and I opened my door and waited until I heard them, louder, as though caution were no longer necessary, on the second landing; and then I stole downstairs myself. There was a light in Dago George's room. It came through the fanlight. The door was closed. But by leaning over the banister of the lower flight of stairs, I could see into the far end of the room through the fanlight. He had a package in his hand. It was torn at one corner, and from this he pulled out what I could see were a number of yellow-back banknotes. He looked at these for a moment, then replaced them in the package, and went to his safe. He knelt down in front of it, laid the package on the floor beside him, and began to open the safe. I heard some one moving above then, and I tiptoed back, and hid in what seemed to be a small private dining room on the second floor. I heard some one go quietly down the stairs, and then I came back here to my room to wait until I could arouse you. The money was in Dago George's safe. It would be there until morning at least, and on that account it no longer concerned me for the moment. And then after a long time I heard you move in your room. It was safer to come this way than to go out into the hall, for I did not know what Dago George might intend to do with you, or with me either, now that he had the money. He would not hesitate to get rid of us both if his cunning prompted him to believe that was his safest course. And I was afraid of that. Only you and I, besides himself, knew anything about that money—and he had got it into his possession. Do you understand? When I heard you move, I started through the window to go to you, and—and you saw me.”

Dave Henderson had sunk his elbows on the iron railing, his chin resting in his hands, and was staring at the strange, fluted sky-line where the buildings jabbed their queer, uneven points up into the night. It was a long time before he spoke.

“It's kind of queer, Teresa,” he said slowly. “It's kind of queer. You're something like a friend of—like a man I know. It's kind of queer. Well, you've given me my chance, you've risked your life to give me my chance, you've played as square as any woman God ever made—and now what are you going to do?”

She drew in her breath sharply, audibly, as though startled, as though his words were foreign, startlingly foreign to anything she had expected.

“I—have I any choice?” she answered. “I know where the money is, and I must notify the authorities. I must tell the police so that they can get it.”

Dave Henderson's eyes, a curious smile in them that the darkness hid, shifted from the sky-line to the little dark figure before him.

“And do you think I will let you tell the police where that money is?” He laughed quietly. “Do you? Did you think you could come and tell me just where it was, and then calmly leave me, and walk into the police station with the news—and get away with it?”

She shook her head.

“I know!” she said. “You think it's a woman's inconsistency. It isn't! I didn't know what you would do, I don't know now. But I have told you all. I have told you what I intend to do, if I possibly can. I had to tell you first. If I was to be honest all the way with myself, I had first of all to be honest with you. After that I was free. I don't know what you will do. I don't see what you can do now. But if you keep me from notifying the police to-night—there is to-morrow—and after that another to-morrow. No matter what happens, to you, or to me, I am going through with this. I”—her voice choked suddenly—“I have to.”

Dave Henderson straightened up.

“I believe you!” he said under his breath. “After what you've done, I'd be a fool if I didn't. And you're offering me a square fight, aren't you, Teresa?” He was laughing in that quiet, curious way again. “Well, I'm not sure I want to fight. Just before I found out that money was gone, I was wondering if I wouldn't give it back myself.”

“Dave!” It was the first time she had ever called him by his name, and it came now from her lips in a quick, glad cry. Her hands caught at both his arms. “Dave, do you mean that? Do you? Dave, it is true! You're honest, after all!”

He turned his head away, a sudden hard and bitter smile on his lips.

“No,” he said. “And I haven't made up my mind yet about giving it back, anyway. But maybe I had other reasons for even getting as far as I did. Not honesty. I can't kid, myself on that. I am a thief.”

Her fingers were gripping at his arms with all their strength, as though she were afraid that somehow he would elude and escape her.

“You were a thief”—it seemed as though her soul were in the passionate entreaty in her voice now—“and I was the daughter of a criminal, with all the hideous memories of crime and evil that stretch back to childhood. But that is in the past, Dave, if we will only leave it there, isn't it? It—it doesn't have to be that way in all the years that are coming. God gives us both a chance to—to make good. I'm going to take mine. Won't you take yours, Dave? You were a thief, but how about from now on?”

He stood rigid, motionless; and again his face was turned away from her out into the darkness.

“From now on.” He repeated the words in a low, wondering way.

“Yes!” she cried eagerly. “From now on, Dave. Let us get away from here, and go and notify the police that Dago George has that money, and—and—and then, you see, the police will come and get it, and return it where it belongs, and that will end it all.”

It was a moment before he turned toward her again, and then his face was white, and drawn, and haggard. He shook his head.

“I can't do that,” he said hoarsely. “There are more reasons than one why I can't do that.” Her hands were clasping his arms. He forced them gently from their hold now, and took them in his own, and drew her closer to him, and held her there. “And one of those reasons is you, Teresa. You've played fair with me, and I'll play fair with you. I—I can't buy you with a fake. I——”

“Dave!” She struggled to free herself. “Dave,

“Wait!” His voice was rough with emotion. “We'll talk straight—there isn't any other way. I—I think I loved you, Teresa, that night, the first time I saw you, when you stood on the threshold of your father's room. To-night I know that I love you, and———-”

“Dave!”

His hold had brought her very close again to him. He could see a great crimson tide flood and sweep the white and suddenly averted face.

“Wait!” he said again. “I think I have learned other things as well to-night—that you care, Teresa, too, but that the stolen money stands between you and me. That is what I mean by buying you, and your love, with a fake. If I returned the money on that account it would not be because I had suddenly become honest—which is the one thing above all else that you ask for. It would not be for honesty's sake, but because I was a hypocrite and dishonest with you, and was letting the money go because I was getting something for it that was worth more to me than the money—because I was making a good bargain that was cheap at a hundred thousand dollars. I can't make myself believe that I feel a sense of honesty any more to-night than I did the night I first took that money, and I would be a cur to try to make you think I did.”

He could feel her hands tremble in his; he could see the sweet face, the crimson gone from it, deathly pale again. Her lips seemed quivering for words, but she did not speak. And suddenly he dropped her hands; and his own hands clenched, and clenched again, at his sides. There was biting mockery at himself stirring and moiling in his brain. “You fool! You fool!” a voice cried out. “She's yours! Take her! All you've got to do is change your tune; she'll believe you—so if you're not honest, why don't you steal her?”

“Listen!” It seemed as though he were forcing himself to speak against his will. “There is another reason; but, first, so that you will understand, there is Millman. It is too long a story to tell you all of it. Millman is the man I spoke of—who is honest—like you. I told him when I was in prison where the money was, and I thought he had double-crossed me. Instead, he gave it back to me to-night—that is how I got it so soon.” He laughed out sharply, harshly. “But Millman said if I didn't give it back to the estate of the man from whom I took it, he would pay it out of his own pocket, because, for me, he had been a thief, too. Do you understand? That's why I said I didn't know what I was going to do. My God—I—I don't know yet. I know well enough that if the police were tipped off to-night, and got the money, that would let Millman out of paying it; but that's not the point. I can't squeal now, can I? I can't go sneaking to the police, and say: 'There it is in Dago George's safe; I can't get my own paws on it again, so I've turned honest, and you can go and take it!' I wouldn't like to face Millman and tell him the money had gone back that way—because I couldn't help it—because it had been taken from me, and I was doing the smug act in a piker play!”

She stepped toward him quickly.

“Dave,” she whispered tremulously, “what do you mean? What are you going to do?”

“I'm going to get that money—from Dago George,” he said in a flat voice. “I'll get that money if I go through hell again for it, as I've been through hell for it already. Then maybe it'll go back where it came from, and maybe it won't; but if it does go back, it'll go back from Dave Henderson—not Dago George!”

She clutched frantically at his arm.

“No, no!” she cried out.

“Listen!” he said. “You have said you meant that money should be returned if it were within your power to accomplish it. I understand that. Well, no matter what the result, to Dago George or to me, I am going down there to get that money—if I can. But if I get it, I do not promise to return it. Remember that! I promise nothing. So you are free to leave here; and if you think, and perhaps you will be right, that the surest way to get the money back is to go instantly to the police, I shall not blame you. If the police can beat me to it before I settle with Dago George, they win—that's all. But in any case, it is not safe for you stay in this place, and so——”

“I was not thinking of that!” she said in a low voice. “Nor shall I leave this house—until you do. I—I am afraid—for you. You do not know Dago George.”

He did not stir for a moment; and then, with some great, overwhelming impulse upon him, he took her face in both his hands, and held it there upturned to his, and looked into the great dark eyes until the lashes dropped and hid them from his gaze.

“Teresa,” he whispered low, “there are some things that are worse than being a thief. I couldn't lay down my hand now, if I wanted to, could I? I can't quit now, can I? I can't crawl. I took that money; and, whether I mean to give it back myself, or keep it, I'd rather go out for good than tell the police it's there, and see the sneer for an honest man—turned honest because he had lost his nerve, and didn't dare go after the money and face the risk of a showdown with Dago George, which was the only way in which he could stay dishonest. Teresa, you see, don't you?” His voice was passionate, hungry in its earnestness. “Teresa, what would you do—play the game, or quit?”

The lashes lifted, and for a moment the dark eyes looked steadily into his, and then they were veiled again.

“I will wait here for you,” she said.