it and disaster. A hundred times he heard the cautious
approach of Richard Hartley's motor-car without the wall, and he fell
into a panic of fear lest that machine prove unruly, break down,
puncture a tire, or burst into a series of ear-splitting explosions. But
at last--it seemed to him that he had waited untold hours and that the
dawn must be nigh--there came an unmistakable rustling from overhead and
the sound of a hard-drawn breath. The top of the wall, just at that
point, was in moonlight, and a man's head appeared over it, then an arm
and then a leg. Hartley called down to him in a whisper, and Ste. Marie,
from the gloom beneath, whispered a reply. He said:

"The boy has promised to come with us. We sha'n't have to fight for it."

Richard Hartley said, "Thank God!" He spoke to some one outside, and
then turning about let himself down to arm's-length and dropped to the
ground. "Thank God!" he said again. "The two men who were to have come
with me didn't show up. I waited as long as I dared, and then came on
with only the chauffeur. He's waiting outside by the car ready to crank
up when I give the word. The car's just a few yards away, headed out for
the road. How are we to get back over the wall?"

Ste. Marie explained that Arthur Benham was to come out to join them at
the wooden door, and doubtless would bring a key. If not, the three of
them could scale fifteen feet easily enough in the way soldiers and
firemen are trained to do it. He told his friend all that was necessary
for the time, and they went together along the wall to the more open
space beside the little door.

They waited there in silence for five minutes, and once Hartley, with
his back toward the house, struck a match under his sheltering coat,
looked to see what time it was, and found it was three minutes past two.

"He ought to be here," the man growled. "I don't like waiting. Good
Lord, you don't think he's funked it, do you? Eh?"

Ste. Marie did not answer, but he was breathing very fast and he could
not keep his hands still.

The dog which he had heard from his window began barking again very far
away in the night, and kept it up incessantly. Perhaps he was barking at
the moon.

"I'm going a little way toward the house," said Ste. Marie, at last. "We
can't see the terrace from here."

But before he had started they heard the sound of hurrying feet, and
Richard Hartley began to curse under his breath. He said:

"Does the young idiot w