own. Then with his eyes overflowing he found his voice.

"How am I ever going to repay you for this?" he exclaimed in a daze.

Elaine was at his side in an instant.

"What is it, Ben? What is it now?"

"What is it?" he faltered. "It's so much--it's so much, I can't say it
all at once."

Donaldson turned away from them both.

"He," panted the boy, "he gave himself up for me. They thought it was
I, and he went to jail for me."

"It was a mistake on their part," answered Donaldson. "They did n't
know."

"And so you shouldered it," she whispered.

"I knew it would come out all right," he faltered.

"A reporter rang me up just now," ran on Arsdale. "He told me the
whole thing. The papers are full of it. They--they say you 're great,
Donaldson, but they don't know _how_ great!"

"If you would n't talk about it," pleaded Donaldson.

"Talk about it? I want to scream it! I want to get out and stand in
Park Row and yell it. I want every living man and woman in the world
to know about it!"

"It's all over--it's done with!"

"No," answered Arsdale, "it's just begun. I feel weak in the knees. I
must go--I must be alone a minute and think this over."

He staggered from the room and Donaldson turning to the girl, said
gently, "Go to Marie now. She will need you."

"You," she exclaimed below her breath, "you are wonderful!"

He turned away his head and she left him there alone.

CHAPTER XXIV

_The Greater Master_

In the fifteen minutes that Donaldson waited in the library, he fought
out with himself the question as to whether he had the strength to
remain here in the house on this the day before the end.

In his decision he took into account his duty towards the boy, the
possible danger to the girl, and his own growing passion. There was
but one answer: he owed it to them all to pull free while there was yet
time. It would be foolhardy to risk here a full day and an evening.

He felt the approaching crisis more than he had at any time during the
week.

At times he became panic-stricken at his powerlessness to check for
even one brief pendulum-swing this steady tread of time. Time was such
an intangible thing, and yet what a Juggernaut! There was nothing of
it which he could get hold of to wrestle, and yet it was more powerful
than Samson to throw him in the end. Sly, subtle, bodiless, soulless,
impersonal; expressed in the big clock above the city, and in milady's
dainty watch ri