第99章

"These months and years that I have tried until my soul was sick to find you!" he cried out."And you are here now! Your face--I must see your face!"She had wrenched herself away from him.He could hear her breath coming sharply in little gasps.He groped his way onward toward the desk.

"WAIT!"--her tones seemed to ring suddenly vibrant through the room.

"Wait, before you touch that lamp! I--I put you on your honour not to light it."He stopped abruptly.

"My--honour?" he repeated mechanically.

"Yes! I came here to-night because there was no other way.No other way--do you understand? I came, trusting to your honour not to take advantage of the conditions that forced me to do this.Ihad no fear that I was wrong--I have no fear now.You will not light that lamp, and you will not make any attempt to prevent my going away as I came--unknown.Is there any question about it, Jimmie? I am in YOUR house.""You don't know what you are saying!" he burst out wildly."I've risked my life for a chance like this again and again; I've gone through hell, living in squalour for a month on end as Larry the Bat in the hope that I might discover who you are--and do you think I'll let anything stop me now! I tell you, no--a thousand times no!"She made no answer.There was only her low, quick breathing coming from somewhere near him.He made another step toward the lamp--and stopped.

"I tell you, no!" he said again, and took another step forward--and stopped once more.

Still she made no answer.A minute passed--another.His hand lifted and swept across his forehead in an agitated way.Still silence.She neither moved nor spoke.His hand dropped slowly to his side.There was a queer, twisted smile upon his lips.

"You win!" he said hoarsely.

"Thank you, Jimmie," she said simply.

"And your name, who you are"--he was speaking, but he did not seem to recognise his own voice--"the hundred other things I've sworn I'd make you explain when I found you, are all taboo as well, Isuppose!"

"Yes," she said.

He laughed bitterly.

"Don't you know," he cried out, "that between the police and the underworld, our house of cards is likely to collapse at any minute--that they are hunting the Gray Seal day and night! Is it to be always like this--that I am never to know--until it is too late!

She came toward him out of the darkness impulsively.

"They will never get you, Jimmie," she said, in a suppressed voice.

And some day, I promise you now, you shall have your reward for to-night.You shall know--everything."

"When?" The word came from him with fierce eagerness.

"I do not know," she answered gently."Soon, perhaps--perhaps sooner than either of us imagine.""And by that you mean--what?" he asked, and his hand reached out for her again through the blackness.

This time she did not draw away.There was an instant's hesitation;then she spoke again hurriedly, a note of anxiety in her voice.

"You are beginning all over again, aren't you, Jimmie? And I have told you that to-night I can explain nothing.And, besides, it is what has brought me here that counts now, and every moment is of--""Yes.I know," he interposed; "but, then, at least you will tell me one thing: Why did you come to-night, instead of sending me a letter as you always have before?""Because it is different to-night than it ever was before," she replied earnestly."Because there is something in what has happened that I cannot explain myself; because there is danger, and where Icould not see clearly I feared a trap, and so I dared not send what, in a letter, could at best be only vague and incomplete details.Do you see?""Yes," said Jimmie Dale--but he was only listening in an abstracted way.If he could only see that face, so close to his! He had yearned for that with all his soul for years now! And she was here, standing beside him, and his hand was upon her arm; and here, in his own den, in his own house, he was listening to another call to arms for the Gray Seal from her own lips! Honour! Was he but a poor, quixotic fool! He had only to step to the desk and switch on the light! Why should--he steadied himself with a jerk, and drew away his hand.She was in HIS house."Go on," he said tersely.

"Do you know, or did you ever hear of old Luther Doyle?" she asked.

"No," said Jimmie Dale.

"Do you know a man, then, named Connie Myers?"Connie Myers! Who in the Bad Lands did not know Connie Myers, who boasted of the half dozen prison sentences already to his credit?

Yes; he knew Connie Myers! But, strangely enough, it was not in the Bad Lands or as Larry the Bat that he knew the man, or that the other knew him--it was as Jimmie Dale.Connie Myers had introduced himself one night several years ago with a blackjack that had just missed its mark as the man had jumped out from a dark alleyway on the East Side, and he, Jimmie Dale, had thrashed the other to within an inch of his life.He had reason to know Connie Myers--and Connie Myers had reason to remember him!

"Yes," he said, with a grim smile; "I know Connie Myers.""And the tenement across the street from where you live as Larry the Bat--that, of course, you know." He leaned toward her wonderingly now.