The clang of the steel gate was the next really distinct impression which Jane received. In a moment she was herself. It was just as if she had been asleep, and then, to the jar of a striking clock, had come broad awake. She listened intently.  
That clang meant that the gate had been shut. One of the men had gone, probably Ember. One of them certainly remained, for she could see that the lights in the laboratory were still on. If it were Molloy, he would come and find her. But it was just possible that it was Jeffrey Ember who had remained behind, so she must keep absolutely still, she knew.
 
At this moment Jane felt that she had really had as much adventure as she wanted for one day. She thought of Henry, and soulfully of her tea. Blotson would be laying it in the library. There would be muffins. She was dreadfully thirsty. Jane could have found it in her heart to weep. The thought of the slowly muffins unnerved her. She would almost have admitted that woman’s place is in the home. There is no saying what depths she might not have arrived at, had the return of the Uncle not distracted her thoughts. The heavy tread convinced her that it was not Mr. Ember, but she did not stir until he came round the corner and flashed the light upon her face. Jane blinked.
 
“Holy Niagara!” said Mr. Molloy. “It was the fright of my life you gave me.”
 
Jane to her feet. She was not quite sure what the situation demanded of her in the way of filial behaviour. Did one embrace one’s Anarchist Parent? Or did one just lean against the wall and look dazed? She thought the latter.
 
Molloy turned the light away, and then flashed it back again with great suddenness. Jane shut her eyes. Mr. Molloy pursed his lips and emitted a whistle which travelled rapidly up the scale and achieved a top note of piercing . Without a word he took Jane by the arm and brought her out of her hiding-place into the lighted laboratory. He then pushed her a little away, took a good look at her, and repeated his former odd expletive:
 
“Holy Niagara!” he said in low but heartfelt tones.
 
Jane felt a little giddy, and she sat down on the bench. Her right hand went out, feeling for support, and touched a sheaf of papers. Through all the confusion of her thought she recognised that these must be the lists from which Ember had been reading.
 
“What is it?” she said faintly.
 
Molloy put down his electric torch, came quite close to her, down with a hand on either knee until his face was on a level with hers, and said in what he doubtless intended for a whisper:
 
“And where is me daughter Renata?”
 
 
Jane leaned back so as to get as far away from the flushed face as possible. She opened her mouth without knowing what she was going to say, and quite suddenly she began to laugh. She leaned her head against the brick wall behind her, and the laughter shook her from head to foot.
 
“Glory be to God, is it a laughing matter?” said Mr. Molloy; “whisht, I tell you, whisht, or you’ll be having Ember back.”
 
He straightened himself, and made a gesture in the direction of the roof.
 
“It’s crazy she is,” he said.
 
Jane put her hand to her throat, for breath, and stopped laughing.
 
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It was—you were—I mean, what did you say?”
 
“I said, where is me daughter Renata?” said Molloy in his deepest tones.
 
Jane down a gurgle of laughter.
 
“Your daughter Renata?” she said.
 
“Me daughter Renata,” repeated Mr. Molloy sternly. “Where is she?”
 
Jane felt herself steadying.
 
“Why do you think—what makes you think——?”
 
“That you’re not my daughter? They say it’s a wise child that knows its own father, but it’s a damn fool father that wouldn’t know his own daughter.”
 
“How do you know?” said Jane.
 
Molloy laughed.
 
 
“That’s telling,” he said; “but I don’t mind telling you. You’re my niece Jane Smith and not my daughter Renata Molloy; and, even if I wasn’t her father, I’d always know you from Renata, the way I could always tell your two mothers apart when no one else could. Your mother had a little on her left , just in the corner where it wouldn’t show unless she shut her eyes. My wife hadn’t got it, and that’s the way I could always tell her from her sister. And my daughter Renata hasn’t got it, but you have; and when you blinked, in yonder, I got a glimpse of it; and when I flashed the light on to you again and you shut your eyes, I made sure. And now, perhaps you’ll tell me where in all the world is Renata?”
 
Jane’s gaze rested intelligently upon Mr. Molloy. The corners of her mouth lifted a little. The dimple showed in her left cheek.
 
“Renata,” she said in a very voice, “is in a safe place, like the money you went abroad for.”
 
Molloy looked at her uncertainly; in the end he laughed.
 
“Meaning you won’t tell me,” he said.
 
“Meaning that I’m not sure whether I’ll tell you or not.”
 
“Maybe it would be better if I didn’t know. That’s what you’re thinking?”
 
“Yes, that was what I was thinking.”
 
“Well, well,” said Mr. Molloy. Then he laughed again. “I’ve the joke on Ember anyhow,” he said. “He thinks he’s got a patent for most of the brains in the country, and here he’s been led by the nose by a slip of a girl just out of school. And what’s more, he was taken in and I wasn’t. He’ll find that hard to swallow, will Mr. Jeffrey Ember. You’d not have taken me in, you know, even if I’d not had the mole to go by. And one of these fine days I shall twit Ember with that.”
 
“Are you so sure you’d have known me?” said Jane. “Why?”
 
 
“My dear girl,” said Mr. Molloy, “if you knew your cousin Renata, you’d not be asking me that. If I find a girl in an underground passage all in the dark, well, that girl is not my daughter Renata. And if, by any queer sort of chance, Renata had been in that hole where I found you, she’d have screamed blue murder when I turned the light on her. Then, at an easy guess, I should say you had Renata beat to a frazzle in the matter of brains. I’m not saying, mind you, that I’m an admirer of brains in a woman. It’s all a matter of opinion, and there’s all sorts in the world. But you’ve got brains, and Renata hasn’t, and Ember’s had you under his nose all this time without ever knowing the difference.”
 
Jane laughed.
 
“Perhaps I didn’t exactly my superior intelligence on Mr. Ember,” she said. Her eyes danced. “You’ve no idea how stupid I can be when I try, and I’ve been trying very hard indeed.”
 
“The devil you have?” said Mr. Molloy. “Well, you had Ember deceived and that’s a grand feather in your cap, I can tell you. He’s a hard one to deceive is Ember.”
 
Jane gurgled suddenly.
 
“As a matter of fact,” she said, “I deceived you, too. Yes, I did, I really did. You know the morning you went off to America, or rather the morning you went off not to America? At the flat? You said good-bye to me, not to Renata.”
 
“And where was Renata then?”
 
Jane twinkled.
 
“In the safe place,” she said.
 
“I’ll swear it was Renata the night before,” said Molloy.
 
“Yes, that’s clever of you. It was.”
 
 
Molloy was thinking hard.
 
“And which of you was it in the night when we thought the roof had fallen in, and came into Renata’s room to look out of the window? I’d my heart in my mouth, for I thought it was a bomb. Was it you or Renata sitting up in bed like a ghost?”
 
“That was me,” said Jane. “You couldn’t have been nearly so frightened as I was.”
 
“Then you changed places between eight and eleven that night?”
 
“We changed places,” said Jane, “just as you and Mr. Ember came home. I shut Renata’s door just as you opened the door of the flat. I was in the hall when the lift stopped.”
 
“Then I think I know how you did it,” said Molloy. He seemed interested. “But I’d like to know who put you up to it; and I’d like to know who gave the back entrance away; and I’d like to know how Renata, who hasn’t the nerve of a mouse, got down that blamed fire-escape alone.”
 
Jane dimpled again.
 
“You do want to know a lot, don’t you?” she said.
 
There was a pause. Then Jane said:
 
“And now, what happens next, please?”
 
“That,” said Molloy, “is just what I’m wondering.”
 
“I ought to be getting back, I think,” said Jane.
 
“Ah, ought you now?” said Mr. Molloy thoughtfully.
 
 
There was another pause. Jane thought she would leave Mr. Molloy to break it this time. She sat considering him. Her eyes dwelt upon him with a calm which he found extremely embarrassing. The longer it continued, the more embarrassing he found it. In the end he said:
 
“You want me to let you go?”
 
Jane nodded.
 
“And not tell Ember?”
 
Jane gave another nod, cool and brief.
 
“Oh, the devil’s in it,” said Molloy, with sudden violence.
 
“You don’t need the devil; you’ve got Mr. Ember,” said Jane.
 
“And that’s true enough, for it’s the very devil and all he is, and, if I let you go, I’ll have him to reckon with—some day. I’d rather face the Day of myself.”
 
“I tell you what I think,” said Jane. “I think Mr. Ember is mad. That is to say, I think he is the sort of who sees what he wants and sets out to get it, without knowing half the difficulties and obstacles that block the way. When he does begin to know them he doesn’t care, he just goes along blind. Where a reasonable man would alter his plan to suit the circumstances, this sort of fanatic just goes on because he’s made his plan and will stick to it whatever happens. He isn’t governed by reason at all. He doesn’t care what risks he runs, or what risks he makes other people run. He goes right on, whatever happens. If the next step is over a he’ll take it. He must go on. Mr. Ember is like that. I think he is mad.”
 
Mr. Molloy stared hard at Jane, then he nodded slowly three times.
 
“Now you’re not like that,” said Jane. “You’re reasonable. You don’t want to run risks when there’s absolutely nothing to be gained by it. Of course, every one’s willing to run risks if it’s worth while. I’m sure you are. I’m sure you’ve done dangerous things.”
 
“I have,” said Mr. Molloy, with simple pride. “There’s no one that’s done more for The Cause, or run greater risks. I could tell you things—but there, maybe I’d better not.”
 
Jane clasped her hands round her knees. She leaned back against the wall and regarded Mr. Molloy with what he took to be .
 
“Now do tell me,” she said—“when you speak of The Cause, what do you mean?”
 
In her heart of hearts Jane had a pretty firm conviction that, to Mr. Molloy, The Cause stood for whatever promoted the wealth, welfare, and of himself, the said Molloy.
 
“Ah,” said Mr. Molloy reverentially. He spread out his hands with a fine gesture. “That’s a big question.”
 
“Well, what I mean,” said Jane, “is this. What do you really call yourself? You know, I always used to call you ‘The Anarchist Uncle,’ but the other day some one said that there were no any more, so I wondered what you really were. Are you a , or a Communist, or a Bolshevist, or what?”
 
A doubtful expression crossed Mr. Molloy’s handsome face.
 
“Well, now,” he said, “it would depend on the company I was in.”
 
Jane had a struggle with the dimple and it.
 
“You mean,” she ventured, “that if you were with , you would be a Socialist; and if you were with Bolshevists, you would be a Bolshevist?”
 
 
“Well, it would be something like that,” admitted Mr. Molloy.
 
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