The infatuate impulse prevailed, to confess and take the consequences.
"I'm afraid--" she began in a quaver.
"No need to be--none I know of, at least," he volunteered promptly, if without moderating his exacting stare.
"You don't understand--"
She hesitated, sighed, plunged in desperation. "It's no use; there's nothing for me to do but own up. What you were not to-night, Mr. Savage, I was."
"Sounds like a riddle to me. What is the answer?"
"You were just make-believe. I was the real thing--a real thief. No, let me go on; it's easier if you don't interrupt. Yes, I'll tell you my name, but it won't mean anything. I'm nobody. I'm Sarah Manvers. I'm a shop-girl out of work."
"Still I don't see . . ."
"I'm coming to that. I live on your block--the Lexington Avenue end, of course--with two other girls. And this afternoon--the studio was so hot and stuffy and lonesome, with both my friends away--I went up on the roof for better air, and fell asleep there and got caught by the storm. Somebody had closed the scuttle, and I ran across roofs looking for another that wasn't fastened down, and when I found one--it was your house--I was so frightened by the lightning I hardly knew what I was doing. I just tumbled in--"
"And welcome, I'm sure," Blue Serge interpolated.