"Let me hear if you do."
"Well, she probably means that it would be her first effort to make you suffer by injuring those whom you love—in other words, by doing something or other to one of us. But forewarned is forearmed, and, anyhow, I don't think it behooves any of us to be afraid of a woman."
"This is a case," said Nick, "where a woman is much more dangerous than a man. A man would fight out in the open; a woman will fight in the shadow; or, at least, such a woman as that will. She is a pretty bad one, Chick, and a grave foe."
Chick nodded.
"It is always best," continued the detective, "to give your enemy or your adversaries credit for every advantage they possess. Black Madge is a wonderfully smart woman, and is unprincipled and implacable as she is smart. She will halt at nothing to carry out her design of vengeance, and just as sure as you are sitting there, Chick, we will presently feel the surety of that threat."
Chick flicked the ashes from his cigar, and then strode across the room to the window, where he stood for a moment looking out.
"I don't see exactly what we are going to do to head her off before she begins," he said presently.
"There is nothing to do," replied Nick gloomily.
"Upon my word," said Chick, laughing, "one would think that you were more than usually affected by that letter from Madge. Do you really take it so seriously as all that?"
"I take it seriously," replied the detective, "because I so well understand what the woman means, and she means just what she says. Instead of going on evenly and living the life we have been living, we must not be for an instant off our guard from this day on, until she is again behind the bars, and I hope the next time I arrest her it will be within the limits of the State of New York, where I can place a watch over her so that she will not escape."