“It’s tolerable simple,” said Ronicky.  “I’ve seen square things done in my life, but I’ve never yet seen a girl throw up all she had to do a good turn for a gent she’s seen only once.  You follow me, lady?  I pretty near guess the trouble you’re running into.”

“You guess what?” she asked.

“I guess that you’re one of John Mark’s best cards.  You’re his chief gambler, lady, and he uses you on the big game.”

She had drawn back, one hand pressed against her breast, her mouth tight with the pain.  “You have guessed all that about me?” she asked faintly.  “That means you despise me!”

“What folks do don’t matter so much,” said Ronicky.  “It’s the reasons they have for doing a thing that matters, I figure, and the way they do it.  I dunno how John Mark hypnotized you and made a tool out of you, but I do know that you ain’t changed by what you’ve done.”

Ronicky Doone stepped to her quickly and took both her hands.  He was not, ordinarily, particularly forward with girls.  Now he acted as gracefully as if he had been the father of Ruth Tolliver.  “Lady,” he said, “you’ve saved two lives tonight.  That’s a tolerable lot to have piled up to anybody’s credit.  Besides, inside you’re snow-white.  We’ve got to go, but I’m coming back.  Will you let me come back?”

“Never, never!” declared Ruth Tolliver.  “You must never see me—­you must never see Caroline Smith again.  Any step you take in that direction is under peril of your life.  Leave New York, Ronicky Doone.  Leave it as quickly as you may, and never come back.  Only pray that his arm isn’t long enough to follow you.”

“Leave Caroline?” he asked.  “I’ll tell you what you’re going to do, Ruth.  When you get back home you’re going to tell Caroline that Jerry, here, has seen the light about Mark, and that he has money enough to pay back what he owes.”

“But I haven’t,” broke in Jerry.

“I have it,” said Ronicky, “and that’s the same thing.”

“I’ll take no charity,” declared Jerry Smith.

“You’ll do what I tell you,” said Ronicky Doone.  “You been bothering enough, son.  Go tell Caroline what I’ve said,” he went on to the girl.  “Let her know that they’s no chain on anybody, and, if she wants to find Bill Gregg, all she’s got to do is go across the street.  You understand?”

“But, even if I were to tell her, how could she go, Ronicky Doone, when she’s watched?”

“If she can’t make a start and get to a man that loves her and is waiting for her, right across the street, she ain’t worth worrying about,” said Ronicky sternly.  “Do we go this way?”

She hurried before them.  “You’ve waited too long—­you’ve waited too long!” she kept whispering in her terror, as she led them through the door, paused to turn out the light behind her, and then conducted them down a passage like that on the other side of the treasure chamber.

It was all deadly black and deadly silent, but the rustling of the girl’s dress, as she hurried before them, was their guide.  And always her whisper came back:  “Hurry!  Hurry!  I fear it is too late!”