not be her wish, and it would
not be to her advantage, to meet with you, and I can, not allow her to
run the risk."

"Has it come to that? Have you a right to speak for her, sir?"

"Perhaps I have----" Drake hesitated, and then said with a rush, "the
right to protect her against a fanatic."

John Storm curbed himself; he had been through a long schooling. "Man, be
honest," he said. "Either your interest is good or bad, selfish or
unselfish. Which is it?"

Drake made no answer.

"But it would be useless to bandy words. I didn't come here to do that.
Will you tell me where she is?"

"No."

"Then it is to be a duel between us--is that so? You for the girl's body
and I for her soul? Very well, I take your challenge."

There was silence once more, and John Storm's eyes wandered about the
room. They fixed themselves at length on the sketch by the pier-glass.

"On my former visit I met with the same reception. The girl could take
care of herself. It was no business of mine. How that relation has ended
I do not ask. But this one----"

"This one is an entirely different matter," said Drake, "and I will thank
you not to----"

But John Storm was making the sign of the cross on his breast, and
saying, as one who was uttering a prayer, "God grant it is and always may
be!"

At the next moment he was gone from the room. The two men stood where he
had left them until his footsteps had ceased on the stairs and the door
had closed behind him. Then Drake cried, "Benson--a telegraph form! I
must telegraph to Koenig at once."

"Yes, he'll follow her up on the double quick," said Lord Robert. "But
what matter? His face will be enough to frighten the girl. Ugh! It was
the face of a death's head!"

At dinner that night John Storm was more than usually silent. To break in
upon his gravity, Mrs. Callender asked him what he intended to do next.

"To take priest's orders without delay," he said.

"And what then?"

"Then," he said, lifting a twitching and suffering face "to make an
attack on the one mighty stronghold of the devil's kingdom whereof woman
is the direct and immediate victim; to tell Society over again it is an
organized hypocrisy for the pursuit and demoralization of woman, and the
Church that bachelorhood is not celibacy, and polygamy is against the
laws of God; to look and search for the beaten and broken who lie
scattered and astray in our bewildered cities, and to protect them and
shelter them whatever they