Page:Frank Packard - The White Moll.djvu/36

 "Stronger!" Gypsy Nan shook her head. "Don't try to kid me! I know. They told me. I'd have known it anyway. I'm going out."

Rhoda Gray found no answer for a moment. A great lump had risen in her throat. Neither would she have needed to be told; she, too, would have known it anyway—it was stamped in the gray pallor of the woman's face. She pressed Gypsy Nan's hand.

And then Gypsy Nan spoke again, a queer, yearning hesitancy in her voice:

"Do—do you believe in God?"

"Yes," said Rhoda Gray simply.

Gypsy Nan closed her eyes.

"Do—do you think there is a chance—even at the last—if—if, without throwing down one's pals, one tries to make good?"

"Yes," said Rhoda Gray again.

"Is the door closed?" Gypsy Nan attempted to raise herself on her elbow, as though to see for herself.

Rhoda Gray forced the other gently back upon the pillows.

"It is closed," she said. "You need not be afraid."

"What time is it?" demanded Gypsy Nan.

Rhoda Gray looked at her watch.

"Twenty-five minutes after twelve," she answered.

"There's time yet, then," whispered Gypsy Nan. "There's time yet." She lay silent for a moment, then her hand closed tightly around Rhoda Gray's. "Listen!" she said. "There's more about—about why I lived like that than I told you. And—and I can't tell you now—I can't go out like a yellow cur—I'm not going to snitch on anybody else just because I'm through myself. But—but there's something on to-night that I'd—I'd like to stop. Only the police, or anybody else, aren't to know anything about it,