Page:Frank Packard - The White Moll.djvu/206

 act, a single look of hers ever given him a hint that, when she had been with him as the White Moll, she cared! It was unjust, unfair, to fling such a taunt at herself. It seemed as though she had lost nearly everything in life, but she had not yet lost her womanliness and her pride.

She had certainly lost her senses, though! Even if that word, that look, that act had passed between them, between the Adventurer and the White Moll, he still did not know that Gypsy Nan was the White Moll—and that was the one thing now that he must not know, and Rhoda Gray halted suddenly, and stared along the hallway ahead of her, and up the short, ladder-like steps that led to the garret. Her ears—or was it fancy?—had caught what sounded like a low knocking up there upon her door. Yes, it came again now distinctly. It was dusk outside; in here, in the hall, it was almost dark. Her eyes strained through the murk. She was not mistaken. Something darker than the surrounding darkness, a form, moved up there.

The knocking ceased, and now the form seemed to bend down and grope along the floor; and then, an instant later, it began to descend the ladder-like steps—and abruptly Rhoda Gray, too, moved forward. It wasn't Danglar. That was what had instantly taken hold of her mind, and she knew a sudden relief now. The man on the stairs—she could see that it was a man now—though he moved silently, swayed in a grotesquely jerky way as though he were lame. It wasn't Danglar! She would go to any length to track Danglar to his lair; but not here—here in the darkness—here in the garret. Here she was afraid of him with a deadly fear; here alone with him there would be a thousand chances of exposure incident to