Page:Frank Packard - The White Moll.djvu/58

, caught her eye now, and she shivered a little as, from where it lay on the floor, the headlines seemed to leer up at her, and mock, and menace her. "... The White Moll The Saint of the East Side Exposed.... Vicious Hypocrisy... . Lowly Charity for Years Cloaks a Consummate Thief...." They had not spared her!

Her lips firmed suddenly, as she listened. The stealthy footfall had not paused in the hall below. It was on the short, ladder-like steps now, leading up here to the garret—and now it had halted outside her door, and there came a low, insistent knocking on the panels.

"Who's dere?" demanded Rhoda Gray, alias Gypsy Nan, in a grumbling tone, as, getting up from the bed, she moved the chair noiselessly a few feet farther away, so that the bed would be beyond the immediate radius of the candle light. Then she shuffled across the floor to the door. "Who's dere?" she demanded again, and her hand, deep in the voluminous pocket of Gypsy Nan's greasy skirt, closed tightly around the stock of Gypsy Nan's revolver.

The voice that answered her expostulated in a plaintive whisper:

"My dear lady! And after all the trouble I have taken to reach here without being either seen or heard!"

For an instant Rhoda Gray hesitated—there seemed something familiar about the voice—then she unlocked the door, and retreated toward the bed.

The door opened and closed softly. Rhoda Gray, reaching the edge of the bed, sat down. It was the fashionably-attired, immaculate young man, who had saved her from Rough Rorke last night. She stared at him in the faint light without a word. Her mind was racing in a mad turmoil of doubt, uncertainty,