The place is
draughty, too, though there is a stove. Do you remember the house at
all? You would be surprised to see how nicely I've fixed it up for her."

"No doubt I should," replied Holland, thinking of the Vaughan and
Marheim valuables.

"It is surprisingly livable, but it _is_ draughty," McVay went on. "The
truth is I ought to have gone south, as I meant to do last week. But one
cannot foresee everything. The winters have been open until Christmas so
often lately. However, I made a mistake and I am perfectly willing to
rectify it. If you have no objection, I'll go and bring her back here."

"If you have any respect for your skin you won't move from that chair."

"Oh, the devil, Holland, don't be so--" he hesitated for the right word,
not wishing to be unjust,--"so obtuse. Listen to that wind! It's cold
here. Think what it must be in that shanty."

"Very unpleasant, I should think."

"More than that, more than that,--suffering, I have no doubt. Why, she
might freeze to death if anything went wrong with the fire. It is not
safe. It's a distinct risk to leave her. Let alone that a storm like
this would scare any girl alone in a place like that, there is some
danger to her life. Don't you see that?"

"Yes, I see," returned Geoffrey, "but you ought to have thought of that
before you came burgling in a blizzard."

"Thought of it! Of course I thought of it. But I had no idea whatever of
being caught, with old McFarlane laid up and the two boys away, it did
seem about the safest job yet."

There was a pause, for Geoffrey evidently had no intention of even
arguing the matter, and presently McVay continued:

"Now you know you would feel badly to-morrow morning if anything went
wrong with her, and you knew you could have helped it!"

"Helped it!" said Geoffrey. "What do you mean? Let you loose on the
county for the sake of a story no sane man would believe?"

"Well," returned McVay judicially, "perhaps you could not do that, but,"
he added brightly, "you could go yourself."

"Yes," said Geoffrey, "I _could_--"

"Then I think you ought to be getting along."

"Upon my word, McVay," said Holland, "you are something of a humorist,
aren't you?"

McVay again looked puzzled, but rose to the occasion.

"Oh, hardly that," he said. "Every now and then I have a way of putting
things,--a way of my own. I find often I am able to amuse people, but if
you are cheerful yourself, you make other people so. I was just think