Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/231

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THE DOOR OF DREAD
217

"No, it ain't ended. And until it's ended I s'pose there's no use rememberin' we're human bein's! It's all for the sake o' the Law! But take it from me, I'm gettin' good and tired o' the Law! What I've saw o' the Law this last few weeks is enough to drive a girl to blackmailin' her way up and down Broadway until her sucker-list is as empty as a last year's bird's nest!"

"You could never, never go back to that sort of thing, Sadie."

"Yuh don't know what I could go back to," declared the desperate-eyed young woman at the window. "And gum-shoein' ain't so soul-satisfyin' that I'm goin' to hang crape over me natural feelin's until Keudell's last come-on goes up to the Big House!"

"But until this case is finished, Sadie, none of us can afford to have feelings. That may seem a little hard, but I've suffered from it quite as much as you have. The three of us, Wilsnach and you and myself, are now secret agents. And a secret agent, after all, is only a spy. And a spy has to remember that he must always work alone, without official help, and that when working he can have no friends, and that if he's cornered he can't