"Well, the time's come right now," I promptly announced, for I had caught the sound of Belton's quick step on the stairs. And the next moment the door swung open and that stalwart officer stood staring intently yet cautiously about the corner of the jamb. He stood there squinting in, in fact, for several seconds, calmly inspecting each face and factor of the situation. It wasn't until he stepped in through the open door, however, that I noticed the ugly-looking service-revolver in his own right hand.
"That's the bunch we want, all right," proclaimed the officer of law and order as he turned back to the still open door. "Come up, boys, and take 'em down," he called cheerfully and companionably out through the darkness.
Mary, at the answering tumult of those quick-thumping feet, crept a little closer to my side. Alarm, I suppose, had at last seeped through and crumbled the last of her Lockwood pride. The flash of waiting firearms, the strange faces, the still stranger experiences of that night, seemed to have brought about some final and unlooked for subjugation of her spirit. At least, so I thought.
"Couldn't you take me away, Witter?" she asked a little weakly and also a little wistfully. Yet there was something about the very tone of her voice which sent a thrill through my tired body. And that thrill gave me boldness enough to reach out a proprietory arm and let the weight of her body rest against it.
"You won't want us, will you, Belton?" I demanded, and that long-legged young officer stared about at us abstractedly, for a moment or two, before replying. When he turned away he did so to hide what seemed to be a slowly widening smile.
"These are the folks I want," he retorted, with a hand-wave toward his three prisoners. And without wasting further breath or time on them I helped Mary out and down to the Nile-green roadster.
"No; let me," she said as she noticed my movement to mount to the driver's seat. But she was silent for several minutes as we threaded our way out through the quiet and shadowy streets.
"Witter," she said at last and with a gulp, "you must think I'm an—an awful coward."
"I was the coward," I proclaimed out of my sudden misery of mind. For there were certain things which would be terribly hard to forget.
"You?" she cried. "After what I've just seen? After what you've saved me from? Oh, how you must despise me!"