you start with it, you can hold
it, if you take the trouble to try."

"You're a strong partisan!" Croyden laughed, as they entered
Clarendon.

"And what are you?" Macloud returned.

"Just what I should like to know----"

"Well, I'll tell you what you are if you don't marry Elaine Cavendish,"
Macloud interrupted--"You're an unmitigated fool!"

"Assuming that Miss Cavendish would marry me."

"You're not likely to marry her, otherwise," retorted Macloud, as he
went up the stairs. On the landing he halted and looked down at Croyden
in the hall below. "And if you don't take your chance, the chance she
has deliberately offered you by coming to Hampton, you are worse
than----" and, with an expressive gesture, he resumed the ascent.

"How do you know she came down here just for that purpose?" Croyden
called.

But all that came back in answer, as Macloud went down the hall and
into his room, was the whistled air from a popular opera, then running
in the Metropolis.

"Ev'ry little movement has a meaning all its own,
Ev'ry thought and action----"

The door slammed--the music ceased.

"I won't believe it," Croyden reflected, "that Elaine would do anything
so utterly unconventional as to seek me out deliberately.... I might
have had a chance if--Oh, damn it all! why didn't we find the old
pirate's box--it would have clarified the whole situation."

As he changed into his evening clothes, he went over the matter,
carefully, and laid out the line of conduct that he intended to
follow.

He would that Elaine had stayed away from Hampton. It was putting him
to too severe a test--to be with her, to be subject to her alluring
loveliness, and, yet, to be unmoved. It is hard to see the luscious
fruit within one's reach and to refrain from even touching it. It grew
harder the more he contemplated it....

"It's no use fighting against it, here!" he exclaimed, going into
Macloud's room, and throwing himself on a chair. "I'm going to cut the
whole thing."

"What the devil are you talking about?" Macloud inquired, pausing with
his waistcoat half on.

"What the devil do you think I'm talking about?" Croyden demanded.

"Not being a success at solving riddles, I give it up."

"Oh, very well!" said Croyden. "Can you comprehend this:--I'm going to
leave town?"

"Certainly--that's plain English. When are you going?"

"To-morrow morning."

"Why this suddenness?"

"To get away quickly--to escape."

"F