“I’ll tell you why I can’t talk to you in here,” said Ronicky gently.  “Because, while you’re under the same roof with this gent with the sneer”—­he turned and indicated Mark, sneering himself as he did so—­“you’re not yourself.  You don’t have a halfway chance to think for yourself.  You feel him around you and behind you and beside you every minute, and you keep wondering not what you really feel about anything, but what John Mark wants you to feel.  Ain’t that the straight of it?”

She glanced apprehensively at John Mark, and, seeing that he did not move to resent this assertion, she looked again with wide-eyed wonder at Ronicky Doone.

“You see,” said the man of the sneer to Caroline Smith, “that our friend from the West has a child-like faith in my powers of—­what shall I say—­hypnotism!”

A faint smile of agreement flickered on her lips and went out.  Then she regarded Ronicky, with an utter lack of emotion.

“If I could talk like him,” said Ronicky Doone gravely, “I sure wouldn’t care where I had to do the talking; but I haven’t any smooth lingo—­I ain’t got a lot of words all ready and handy.  I’m a pretty simple-minded sort of a gent, Miss Smith.  That’s why I want to get you out of this house, where I can talk to you alone.”

She paused, then shook her head.

“As far as going out with me goes,” went on Ronicky, “well, they’s nothing I can say except to ask you to look at me close, lady, and then ask yourself if I’m the sort of a gent a girl has got anything to be afraid about.  I won’t keep you long; five minutes is all I ask.  And we can walk up and down the street, in plain view of the house, if you want.  Is it a go?”

At least he had broken through the surface crust of indifference.  She was looking at him now, with a shade of interest and sympathy, but she shook her head.

“I’m afraid—­” she began.

“Don’t refuse right off, without thinking,” said Ronicky.  “I’ve worked pretty hard to get a chance to meet you, face to face.  I busted into this house tonight like a burglar—­”

“Oh,” cried the girl, “you’re the man—­Harry Morgan—­” She stopped, aghast.

“He’s the man who nearly killed Morgan,” said John Mark.

“Is that against me?” asked Ronicky eagerly.  “Is that all against me?  I was fighting for the chance to find you and talk to you.  Give me that chance now.”

Obviously she could not make up her mind.  It had been curious that this handsome, boyish fellow should come as an emissary from Bill Gregg.  It was more curious still that he should have had the daring and the strength to beat Harry Morgan.

“What shall I do, Ruth?” she asked suddenly.

Ruth Tolliver glanced apprehensively at John Mark and then flushed, but she raised her head bravely.  “If I were you, Caroline,” she said steadily, “I’d simply ask myself if I could trust Ronicky Doone.  Can you?”

The girl faced Ronicky again, her hands clasped in indecision and excitement.  Certainly, if clean honesty was ever written in the face of a man, it stood written in the clear-cut features of Ronicky Doone.