“It's Dick!” The cry came as a wail of despair from the girl.
At the same moment, Garson flashed his torch, and the light fell swiftly on young Gilder, bowed to a kneeling posture before the couch, half-throttled by the strength of Chicago Red. Close beside him, Mary looked down in wordless despair over this final disaster of the night. There was silence among the men, all of whom save the captor himself were gathered near the fireplace.
Garson retired a step farther before he spoke his command, so that, though he held the torch still, he like the others was in shadow. Only Mary was revealed clearly as she bent in alarm toward the man she had married. It was borne in on the forger's consciousness that the face of the woman leaning over the intruder was stronger to hold the prisoner and to prevent any outcry than the might of Chicago Red himself, and so he gave the order.
“Get away, Red.”
The fellow let go his grip obediently enough, though with a trifle of regret, since he gloried in his physical prowess.
Thus freed of that strangling embrace, Dick stumbled blindly to his feet. Then, mechanically, his hand went to the lamp on the table back of the couch. In the same moment Garson snapped his torch to darkness. When, after a little futile searching, Dick finally found the catch, and the mellow streamed forth, he uttered an ejaculation of stark amazement, for his gaze was riveted on the face of the woman he loved.
“Good God!” It was a cry of torture wrung from his soul of souls.
Mary swayed toward him a little, palpitant with fear—fear for herself, for all of them, most of all for him.
“Hush! hush!” she panted warningly. “Oh, Dick, you don't understand.”
Dick's hand was at his throat. It was not easy for him to speak yet. He had suffered severely in the process of being throttled, and, too, he was in the clutch of a frightful emotion. To find her, his wife, in this place, in such company—her, the woman whom he loved, whom, in spite of everything, he had honored, the woman to whom he had given his name! Mary here! And thus!