CHAPTER NINE.
A SHOT IN THE DARK A key clicked in the terrace door--a voice swore muffledly at the rain.
Dale lowered her revolver slowly.

It was Richard Fleming--come to meet her here, instead of down by the drive.
She had telephoned him on an impulse.

But now, as she looked at him in the light of her single candle, she wondered if this rather dissipated, rather foppish young man about town, in his early thirties, could possibly understand and appreciate the motives that had driven her to seek his aid.

Still, it was for Jack! She clenched her teeth and resolved to go through with the plan mapped out in her mind.

It might be a desperate expedient but she had nowhere else to turn! Fleming shut the terrace door behind him and moved down from the alcove, trying to shake the rain from his coat.
"Did I frighten you ?" "Oh, Mr.Fleming--yes!" Dale laid her aunt's revolver down on the table.