It was Garson who answered.

"I know that you can be trusted," he said, "because I know you lo----"

He checked himself with a shiver, and out of the darkness his face showed white.

"You must listen," d.i.c.k went on, facing again toward the girl, who was trembling before him, her eyes by turns searching his expression or downcast in unfamiliar confusion, which she herself could hardly understand.

"Your safety depends on me," the young man warned. "Suppose I should call for help?"

Garson stepped forward threateningly.

"You would only call once," he said very gently, yet most grimly. His hand went to the noiseless weapon in his coat-pocket.

But the young man's answer revealed the fact that he, too, was determined to the utmost, that he understood perfectly the situation.

"Once would be quite enough," he said simply.

Garson nodded in acceptance of the defeat. It may be, too, that in some subtle fashion he admired this youth suddenly grown resolute, competent to control a dangerous event. There was even the possibility that some instinct of tenderness toward Mary herself made him desire that this opportunity should be given for wiping out the effects of misfortune which fate hitherto had brought into her life.

"You win," Garson said, with a half-laugh. He turned to the other men and spoke a command.

"You get over by the hall door, Red. And keep your ears open every second. Give us the office if you hear anything. If we're rushed, and have to make a quick get-away, see that Mary has the first chance. Get that, all of you?"

As Chicago Red took up his appointed station, Garson turned to d.i.c.k.

"Make it quick, remember."

He touched the other two and moved back to the wall by the fireplace, as far as possible from the husband and wife by the couch.

d.i.c.k spoke at once, with a hesitancy that betrayed the depth of his emotion.

"Don't you care for me at all?" he asked wistfully.

The girl's answer was uttered with nervous eagerness which revealed her own stress of fear.

"No, no, no!" she exclaimed, rebelliously.

Now, however, the young man had regained some measure of rea.s.surance.

"I know you do, Mary," he a.s.serted, confidently; "a little, anyway. Why, Mary," he went on reproachfully, "can't you see that you're throwing away everything that makes life worth while? Don't you see that?"

There was no word from the girl. Her breast was moving convulsively. She held her face steadfastly averted from the face of her husband.

"Why don't you answer me?" he insisted.

Mary's reply came with all the coldness she could command.

"That was not in the bargain," Mary said, indifferently.

The man's voice grew tenderly winning, persuasive with the longing of a lover, persuasive with the pity of the righteous for the sinner.

"Mary, Mary!" he cried. "You've got to change. Don't be so hard. Give the woman in you a chance."

The girl's form became rigid as she fought for self-control. The plea touched to the bottom of her heart, but she could not, would not yield.

Her words rushed forth with a bitterness that was the cover of her distress.

"I am what I am," she said sharply. "I can't change. Keep your promise, now, and let's get out of this."

Her a.s.sertion was disregarded as to the inability to change.

"You can change," d.i.c.k went on impetuously. "Mary, haven't you ever wanted the things that other women have, shelter, and care, and the big things of life, the things worth while? They're all ready for you, now, Mary.... And what about me?" Reproach leaped in his tone. "After all, you've married me. Now it's up to you to give me my chance to make good.

I've never amounted to much. I've never tried much. I shall, now, if you will have it so, Mary; if you'll help me. I will come out all right, I know that--so do you, Mary. Only, you must help me."

"I help you!" The exclamation came from the girl in a note of incredulous astonishment.

"Yes," d.i.c.k said, simply. "I need you, and you need me. Come away with me."

"No, no!" was the broken refusal. There was a great grief clutching at the soul of this woman who had brought vengeance to its full flower.

She was gasping. "No, no! I married you, not because I loved you, but to repay your father the wrong he had done me. I wouldn't let myself even think of you, and then--I realized that I had spoiled your life."

"No, not spoiled it, Mary! Blessed it! We must prove that yet."

"Yes, spoiled it," the wife went on pa.s.sionately. "If I had understood, if I could have dreamed that I could ever care---- Oh, d.i.c.k, I would never have married you for anything in the world."

"But now you do realize," the young man said quietly. "The thing is done. If we made a mistake, it is for us to bring happiness out of that error."

"Oh, can't you see?" came the stricken lament. "I'm a jail-bird!"

"But you love me--you do love me, I know!" The young man spoke with joyous certainty, for some inflection of her voice had told the truth to his heart. Nothing else mattered. "But now, to come back to this hole we're in here. Don't you understand, at last, that you can't beat the law? If you're caught here to-night, where would you get off--caught here with a gang of burglars? Tell me, dear, why did you do it? Why didn't you protect yourself? Why didn't you go to Chicago as you planned?"

"What?" There was a new quality in Mary's voice. A sudden throb of shock masked in the surface indifference of intonation.

d.i.c.k repeated his question, un.o.bservant of its first effect.

"Why didn't you go to Chicago as you had planned?"

"Planned? With whom?" The interrogation came with an abrupt force that cried of new suspicions.

"Why, with Burke." The young man tried to be patient over her density in this time of crisis.

"Who told you that I had arranged any such thing?" Mary asked. Now the tenseness in her manner got the husband's attention, and he replied with a sudden gravity, apprehensive of he knew not what.

"Burke himself did."

"When?" Mary was standing rigid now, and the rare color flamed in her cheeks. Her eyes were blazing.

"Less than an hour ago." He had caught the contagion of her mood and vague alarm swept him.

"Where?" came the next question, still with that vital insistence.