"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 a.s.sumed.

"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 t.i.ttered 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 b.o.o.b," 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 a.s.sent.

"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.