Sir Nigel a good deal easier. Whether he would have stolen the revolver
had that shot at the Frozen Flames--for which Sir Nigel has been so
sorely tried--never been fired, I cannot say, but that doubtless would
have been the course he would have taken. Luck favoured him upon that
dreadful night--but now that luck has changed. His own action has been
his undoing. If he had not given vent to this feeling of hatred that he
cherished in his heart for a master who was of such different stuff of
which he himself was made, the whole infernal plot might never have been
revealed. And yet--who can tell?

"My lord and gentlemen of the jury, the tale is told. Justice has been
done an innocent man, and the rest of its doing lies in your capable
hands. I ask your permission to be seated."

His voice trailed off into silence, and across the court a murmur arose,
like the hum of some giant airplane growing gradually nearer and nearer.
A sort of strangled sob came from the back of Cleek's chair, and he
turned his head to smile into 'Toinette's wet eyes. In their depths
gratitude and sorrow were inexplicably mingled. His hand went out to her;
she ran toward him from her place, and in spite of judge and jury, in
spite of the order of the law, knelt down there at his side and pressed
her warm lips against his hand.

CHAPTER XXVIII

"TOWARD MORNING...."

The flower in Cleek's buttonhole was jauntily erect, his immaculately
garbed figure fitted in perfectly with every detail of the whole scene
of which he was a part. He looked--and was--the exquisitely turned-out
man-about-town. Only his eyes told of other things, and they, as the
organs welled to the sounds of the wedding march lighted up with
something that spoke of the man within rather than the man without. He
turned from his position at the altar (where he was fulfilling his duties
as best man to Sir Nigel Merriton) and glanced back over the curve of
his shoulder to where a girl sat, bending forward in the empty pew, her
face alight, her eyes, beneath the curving hat-brim, swimming with
tears.... She nodded as he saw her, and smiled, the promise of their
future together curving the sweet lips into gracious, womanly lines.
Behind her, on guard as usual, and gay in a gorgeous garment of
black-and-white checks, white waistcoat and flaming scarlet buttonhole,
sat Dollops, faithfully watching while Cleek assisted at the ceremony
that was uniting two souls in one, and casting a