Then he shook her, passionately, and held her off from him, and glared at her.
One year earlier in her career she knew she would surely have fainted from terror and exhaustion.

Even as it was, she seemed about to school herself for some relieving and final surrender to the inevitable, only, her vacantly staring eyes, looking past him, by accident caught sight of a little movement which brought her drooping courage into life again.
For she had seen the window-shutter slowly widen, and then a cautious hand appear on the ledge.

She watched the shutter swing in, further and further, and then the stealthy figure, with its padded feet, emerge out of the darkness into the half-lighted room.

She could even see the pallor of the intruder's face, and his quick movement of warning that reminded her of the part she must play.
"I give up!" she gasped, in simulated surrender, falling and drooping with all her weight in Pobloff's arms.
He caught her and held her, bewildered, triumphant.
"You mean it ?" he cried, searching her face.
"Yes, I mean it!" she murmured.

Then she shuddered a little, involuntarily, for she had seen Durkin catch up one of his shoes, hammer-like, where it protruded from the side pocket of his coat--and she knew only too well how he would make use of it.
As Pobloff bent over her, unwarned, unsuspecting, almost wondering for what she was waiting with such confidently closed eyes, Durkin crossed the carpeted floor.