The violence of this language, however, had given her clues enough to the workings of the chief’s mind.  She had always been a favored member of the gang, and the men had whistled attendance on her hardly less than upon Ruth Tolliver herself.  This sudden harshness in the language of Harry Morgan told her that too much was known, or guessed.

A sudden weakness came over her.  “I’m going out,” she said, turning to Harry Morgan who had sauntered over to the front door.

“Are you?” he asked.

“I’m going to take one turn more up the block.  I’m not sleepy yet,” she repeated and put her hand on the knob of the door.

“Not so you could notice it, you ain’t,” retorted Morgan.  “We’ve taken lip enough from you, kid.  Your day’s over.  Go up and see what the chief has to say, but you ain’t going through this door unless you walk over me.”

“Those are orders?” she asked, stepping back, with her heart turning cold.

“Think I’m doing this on my own hook?”

She turned slowly to the stairs.  With her hand on the balustrade she decided to try the effect of one personal appeal.  Nerving herself she whirled and ran to Harry Morgan.  “Harry,” she whispered, “let me go out till I’ve worked up my courage.  You know he’s terrible to face when he’s angry.  And I’m afraid, Harry—­I’m terribly afraid!”

“Are you?” asked Morgan.  “Well, you ain’t the first.  Go and take your medicine like the rest of us have done, time and time running.”

There was no help for it.  She went wearily up the stairs to the room of the master thief.  There she gave the accustomed rap with the proper intervals.  Instantly the cold, soft voice, which she knew and hated so, called to her to enter.

She found him in the act of putting aside his book.  He was seated in a deep easy-chair; a dressing gown of silk and a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles gave him a look of owlish wisdom, with a touch of the owl’s futility of expression, likewise.  He rose, as usual, with all his courtesy.  She thought at first, as he showed her to a chair, that he was going to take his usual damnable tack of pretended ignorance in order to see how much she would confess.  However, tonight this was not his plan of battle.

The moment she was seated, he removed his spectacles, drew a chair close to hers and sat down, leaning far forward.  “Now, my dear, foolish girl,” said the master thief, smiling benevolently upon her, “what have you been doing tonight to make us all miserable?”

She knew at once that he was aware of every move she had made, from the first to the last.  It gave her firmness to tell the lie with suavity.  “It’s a queer yarn, John,” she said.

“I’m used to queer yarns,” he answered.  “But where have you been all this time?  It was only to take five minutes, I thought.”

She made herself laugh.  “That’s because you don’t know Ronicky Doone, John.”