ld have meant so much if you had."

"That," replied Mr. Magee, "is what I'm coming to--very reluctantly. Did
you note any spirit of caution in the fellow who set forth on your
quest, and dropped over the balcony rail? You did not. I waited on the
porch and saw Max tap the safe. I saw him and Cargan come out. I waited
for them. Just as I was about to jump on them, somebody--the man with
the seventh key, I guess--did it for me. There was a scuffle. I joined
it. I emerged with the package everybody seems so interested in."

"Yes," said the girl breathlessly. "And then--"

"I started to bring it to you," went on Magee, glancing over his
shoulder at Max. "I was all aglow with romance, and battle, and all that
sort of thing. I pictured the thrill of handing you the thing you had
asked. I ran up-stairs. At the head of the stairs--I saw her."

The light died in her eyes. Reproach entered there.

"Yes," continued Magee, "your knight errant lost his nerve. He ceased to
run on schedule. She, too, asked me for that package of money."

"And you gave it to her," said the girl scornfully.

"Oh, no," answered Magee quickly. "Not so bad as that. I simply sat down
on the steps and thought. I got cautious. I decided to wait until
to-day. I--I did wait."

He paused. The girl strode on, looking straight ahead. Mr. Magee thought
of adding that he had felt it might be dangerous to place a package so
voraciously desired in her frail hands. He decided he'd better not, on
second thought.

"I know," he said, "what you think. I'm a fine specimen of a man to send
on a hunt like that. A weak-kneed mollycoddle who passes into a state of
coma at the crucial moment. But--I'm going to give you that package
yet."

The girl turned her head. Mr. Magee saw that her eyes were misty with
tears.

"You're playing with me," she said brokenly. "I might have known. And I
trusted you. You're in the game with the others--and I thought you
weren't. I staked my whole chance of success on you--now you're making
sport of me. You never intended to give me that money--you don't intend
to now."

"On my word," cried Magee, "I do intend to give it to you. The minute we
get back to the inn. I have it safe in my room."

"Give it to her," said the girl bitterly. "Why don't you give it to
her?"

Oh, the perversity of women!

"It's you I want to give it to," replied Magee warmly. "I don't know
what was the matter with me last night. I was a fool. You don't beli