noses on a wrong scent till Larry's got
away. The girl must be sent off too, but not with him.' Panic had ended
in quite hardening his resolution. He entered the bedroom with a feeling
of disgust. The fellow was lying there, his bare arms crossed behind his
tousled head, staring at the ceiling, and smoking one of many cigarettes
whose ends littered a chair beside him, whose sickly reek tainted the
air. That pale face, with its jutting cheek-bones and chin, its hollow
cheeks and blue eyes far sunk back--what a wreck of goodness!

He looked up at Keith through the haze of smoke and said quietly: "Well,
brother, what's the sentence? 'Transportation for life, and then to be
fined forty pounds?'"

The flippancy revolted Keith. It was Larry all over! Last night
horrified and humble, this morning, "Don't care" and feather-headed. He
said sourly:

"Oh! You can joke about it now?"

Laurence turned his face to the wall.

"Must."

Fatalism! How detestable were natures like that!

"I've been to see her," he said.

"You?"

"Last night. She can be trusted."

Laurence laughed.

"That I told you."

"I had to see for myself. You must clear out at once, Larry. She can
come out to you by the next boat; but you can't go together. Have you any
money?"

"No."

"I can foot your expenses, and lend you a year's income in advance. But
it must be a clean cut; after you get out there your whereabouts must
only be known to me."

A long sigh answered him.

"You're very good to me, Keith; you've always been very good. I don't
know why."

Keith answered drily

"Nor I. There's a boat to the Argentine tomorrow. You're in luck;
they've made an arrest. It's in the paper."

"What?"

The cigarette end dropped, the thin pyjama'd figure writhed up and stood
clutching at the bedrail.

"What?"

The disturbing thought flitted through Keith's brain: 'I was a fool. He
takes it queerly; what now?'

Laurence passed his hand over his forehead, and sat down on the bed.

"I hadn't thought of that," he said; "It does me!"

Keith stared. In his relief that the arrested man was not Laurence, this
had not occurred to him. What folly!

"Why?" he said quickly; "an innocent man's in no danger. They always
get the wrong man first. It's a piece of luck, that's all. It gives us
time."

How often had he not seen that expression on Larry's face, wistful,
questioning, as if trying to see the thing with his--Keith's-eyes,