"Let me go, oh, please let me go!" she wailed. Louise's lower lip trembled sympathetically. Such a tender slip of a heroine to be at the mercy of such an unscrupulous monster!
"Still stubborn, Martha?" Mordaunt snarled.
The girl drew herself up proudly. Only her heaving bosom told of the physical struggle which had forced her into the basement den. John could not help marvelling at her recuperative powers.
"Still," she murmured with flashing eye.
"Think it over well," the black mustachioed one persisted. "Am I so odious? Marriage with me means riches, girl, riches. And I would be kind to you."
She shook her head vehemently. "Never, never, never would I marry a man who lives as you. Though you beat me, though you torture me [Louise's eyes welled in spite of herself], never can you force me into such wedlock."
Hasty footsteps sounded at the head of the stairway. Ralph, the etcher, dashed down into the room.
"The police!" he shrieked. "They are about to raid us!"
Merrilac muttered a curse. "Take her away," he growled to his sister of the clinging robes. "Take her to your home by the secret passage." He pressed a button and a panel in the wall swung back. "Ralph and I must remain to destroy the die! Quick, on your life, be quick!"
Would the police come in time? Nay, John and Sid and Louise, not yet. That would have ended the play in the first act. Dolores dragged the heroine away with her. Mordaunt swung the panel back into place and ran over to the table where the counterfeiting apparatus lay.