is voice.

"Oh, I'm quite all right now," said Miss Penny enjoyably. "I thought
it only right and proper to let you know where you stand. At the
present moment you are as likely as not aiding and abetting a breaker
of the British laws and her accomplice. You may become involved in
serious complications, you see."

"If that means that I can be of any service in the matter I shall be
only too delighted,--if you will not look upon me as an intruder." He
spoke to Miss Penny but looked at Margaret.

"Ah-ha! Qualms of conscience----"

"Hennie is a little raised, Mr. Graeme," broke in Margaret. "Please
excuse her. A good night's rest will make her all right."

"Never felt better in my life," sparkled Miss Penny. "But seriously,
Mr. Graeme, it is only right you should understand, for we don't quite
know where we are ourselves, and I'm going to tell you even though
Margaret kicks all the skin off my leg in the process. In a
word,--we've bolted."

"Bolted?" he echoed, all aglow with hopeful interest.

"Yes--from Mr. Pixley and all his works. And as he had been
threatening to make us a Ward of Court, you see--well, there you are,
don't you know."

"I see," he said, and there was a new light in his eyes as he looked
at Margaret, and his soul danced within him again as David's before
the Ark.

"For reasons which seemed adequate to myself, Mr. Graeme,"--began
Margaret, in more sober explanation.

"They were, they were. I am sure of it," sang his heart. And his brain
asked eagerly, "Had Charles Svendt anything to do with it, I wonder?"

"--I thought it well to remove myself from the care of my guardian
Mr. Pixley----"

"Splendid girl! Splendid girl!" sang his heart.

"--And as I have still some of my time to serve----"

"How long, O Lord, how long?" chaunted his heart, with no sense of
impropriety, for it was sounding paeans of joyful hope.

"--You see----" said Margaret.

"I see."

"Do you think they could make me go back to him?" she asked anxiously.

"To Mr. Pixley? Certainly not--that is if your reasons for leaving him
seemed adequate to the Court, as I am sure they would."

She offered no explanation on this point. All that she left unsaid,
and that he would have given much to hear, seemed dancing just inside
Miss Penny's sparkling eyes, and as like as not to come dancing out at
any moment.

"You see," said Graeme, "I happen to have been making some enquiries
from a legal friend on that very point----"