"I'm - I'm all right," she asserted fiercely, as Rhoda Gray,
pausing in the act of gathering up the discarded garments, regarded
her anxiously. "Bring me a package of that money after you've put
those things away - yes, and you'll find a flashlight there. We'll
need it going down the stairs."

Rhoda Gray made no answer. There was no hesitation now in her
actions, as, to the pile of clothing in her arms, she added the
revolver that lay on the blanket, and, returning to the little
trap-door in the ceiling, hid them away; but her brain was whirling
again in a turmoil of doubt. This was madness, utter, stark, blind
madness, this thing that she was doing! It was suicide, literally
that, nothing less than suicide for one in Gypsy Nan's condition to
attempt this thing. But the woman would certainly die here, too,
with out medical assistance - only there was the police! Rhoda
Gray's face, as she stood upright in the little aperture again,
throwing the wavering candle-rays around her, seemed suddenly to
have grown pinched and wan. The police! The police! It was her
conscience, then, that was gnawing at her - because of the police!
Was that it? Well, there was also, then, another side. Could she
turn informer, traitor, become a female Judas to a dying woman, who
had sobbed and thanked her Maker because she had found some one whom
she believed she could trust? That was a hideous and an abominable
thing to do! "You swore it! You swore you'd see me through!" - the
words came and rang insistently in her ears. The sweet, piquant
little face set in hard, determined lines. Mechanically she picked
up the flashlight and a package of the banknotes, lowered the board
in the ceiling into place, and returned to Gypsy Nan.

"I'm ready, if there is no other way," she said soberly, as she