The door was just closing behind the cabby as she reached the bottom step; and she paused, considering that it were best to wait a moment, at least, lest he should be surprised at the quickness with which his employer found work for him; paused and on some mysterious impulse half turned, glancing back up the stairs.

Not a thought too soon; another instant's hesitation and she had been caught. Some one--a man--was descending; and rapidly. Maitland? Even in her brief glance she saw the white shield of a shirt bosom gleam dull against the shadows. Maitland was in evening dress. Could it be possible...?

No time now for conjecture, time now only for action. She sprang for the door, had it open in a trice, and before the cabby was really enthroned upon his lofty box, the girl was on the step, fair troubled face upturned to him in wild entreaty.

"Hurry!" she cried, distracted. "Drive off, at once! Please--oh, please!"

Perhaps the man had expected something of the sort, analyzing Maitland's words and manner. At all events he was quick to appreciate.

This was what he had been engaged for and what he had been paid for royally, in advance.

Seizing reins and whip, he jerked the startled animal between the shafts out of its abstraction and----

"I say, cabby! One moment!"

The cabman turned; the figure on the stoop of the house was undoubtedly Maitland's--Maitland as he had just seen him, with the addition of a hat. As he looked the man was at the wheel, clambering in.

"Changed my mind--I'm coming along, cabby," he said cheerfully. "Drive us to the St. Luke Building, please and--hurry!"

"Yessir!"

Bitter as poverty the cruel lash cut round the horse's flanks; and as the hansom shot out at break-neck speed toward Fifth Avenue, the girl cowered back in her corner, shivering, staring wide-eyed at the man who had so coolly placed himself at her side.

This, then, was that nameless danger that had stalked her on the staircase, this the personality whose animosity toward her had grown so virulent that, even when consciously ignorant of its proximity, she had been repelled and frightened by its subtle emanations! And now--and now she was in his power!

Dazed with fear she started up, acting blindly on the primitive instinct to fly; and in another moment, doubtless, would have thrown herself boldly from the cab to the sidewalk, had her companion not seized her by the forearm and by simple force compelled her to resume her seat.

"Be still, you little fool!" he told her sharply. "Do you think that I'm going to let you go a third time? Not till I'm through with you....

And if you scream, by the powers, I'll throttle you!"

XIV

RETRIBUTION

She sank back, speechless. Anisty glanced her up and down without visible emotion, then laughed unpleasantly,--the hard and unyielding laugh of brute man brutishly impassioned.

"This silly ass, Maitland," he observed, "isn't really as superfluous as he seems. _I_ find him quite a convenience, and I suppose that ought to be totted up to his credit, since it's because he's got the good taste to resemble me.... Consider his thoughtfulness in providing me this cab! What'd I've done without it? To tell the truth I was quite at a loss to frame it up, how to win your coy consent to this giddy elopement, back there in the hall. But dear kind Mis-ter Maitland, bless his innocent heart! fixes it all up for me.... And so," concluded the criminal with ironic relish,--"and so I've got _you_, my lady."

He looked at her in sidelong fashion, speculative, calculating, relentless. And she bowed her head, assenting, "Yes--"

"You're dead right, little woman. Got you. Um-mmm."

She made no reply; she could have made none aside from raising an outcry, although now she was regaining something of her shattered poise, and with it the ability to accept the situation quietly, for a little time (she could not guess how long she could endure the strain), pending an opportunity to turn the tables on this, her persecutor.

"What is it," she said presently, with some effort--"what is it you wish with me?"

"I have my purpose," with a grim smile.

"You will not tell me?"

"You've guessed it, my lady; I will not--just yet. Wait a bit."

She spurred her flagging spirit until it flashed defiance. "Mr. Anisty!"

"Yes?" he responded with a curling lip, cold eyes to hers.

"I demand--"

"No you don't!" he cut her short with a snarl. "You're not in a position to demand anything. Maybe it would be as well for you to remember who you're dealing with."

"And----?"--heart sinking again.

"And I've been made a fool of just as long as I can stand for it. I'm a crook--like yourself, my lady, but with more backbone and some pride in being at the head of my profession. I'm wanted in a dozen places; I'll spend the rest of my days in the pen, if they ever get me. Twice today I've been within an ace of being nabbed--kindness of you and your Maitland. Now--I'm desperate and determined. Do you connect?"

"What--?" she asked breathlessly.

"I can make you understand, I fancy. Tonight, instead of dropping to the back yard and shinning over the fences to safety, I took the fire escape up to the top flat--something a copper would never think of--and went through to the hall. Why? Why, to interrupt the tender tete-a-tete Maitland had planned. Why again? Because, for one thing, I've never yet been beaten at my own game; and I'm too old a dog to learn new tricks.

Moreover, no man yet has ever laid hands on me in anger and not regretted it." The criminal's voice fell a note or two, shaking with somber passion. "I'll have that pup's hide yet!" he swore.

The girl tried to nerve herself. "It--it doesn't seem to strike you,"

she argued, controlling her hysteria by sheer strength of purpose, "that I have only to raise my voice to bring all Broadway to my rescue."

For by now the cab had sheered off into that thoroughfare, and was rocking rapidly south, between glittering walls of light. A surface car swooped down upon them, and past, making night hideous with gong and drumming trucks, and drowning Anisty's response. For which reason he chose to repeat it, with added emphasis.

"You try it on, my lady, and see what happens."

She had no answer ready, and he proceeded, after waiting a moment: "But you're not going to be such a fool. You have no pleasure in the prospect of seeing the inside of the Tombs, yourself; and, besides, you ought to know me well enough to know...."

"What?" she breathed, in spite of herself.

Anisty folded his arms, thrusting the right hand beneath his coat.

"Maitland got only one of my guns," he announced ironically. "He'd've got the contents of the other, only he chose to play the fool and into my hands. Now I guess you understand,"--and turning his head he fixed her with an inflexible glare, chill and heartless as steel,--"that one squeal out of you will be the last. Oh, I've got no scruples; arrest to me means a living death. I'll take a shorter course, by preference, and--I'll take you with me for company."

"You--you mean you would shoot me?" she whispered, incredulous.

"Like a dog," he returned with unction.

"You, a man, would--would shoot a woman?"

"You're not a woman, my lady: you're a crook. Just as I'm not a man: _I'm_ a crook. We're equals, sexless, soulless. You seem to have overlooked that. Amateurs often do.... To-night I made you a fair proposition, to play square with me and profit. You chose to be haughty. Now you see the other side of the picture."

Bravado? Or deadly purpose? How could she tell? Her heart misgave her; she crushed herself away from him as from some abnormally vicious, loathly reptile.

He understood this; and regarded her with a confident leer, inscrutably strong and malevolent.