t."

The V.C.! There, indeed, was an aggravation to one illogical mind. But
to cast a moment's doubt upon the certainty of his coming out alive!

"Of course he'll come out," said I. "We must make up our minds to
that."

"Did he tell you he was expecting the servants or his wife? If so, of
course we must hurry up."

"No, Raffles, I'm afraid he's not expecting anybody. He told me, if he
hadn't looked in for letters, we should have had the place to ourselves
another week. That's the worst of it."

Raffles smiled as he secured a regular puttee of dust-sheeting. No
blood was coming through.

"I don't agree, Bunny," said he. "It's quite the best of it, if you
ask me."

"What, that he should die the death?"

"Why not?"

And Raffles stared me out with a hard and merciless light in his clear
blue eyes--a light that chilled the blood.

"If it's a choice between his life and our liberty, you're entitled to
your decision and I'm entitled to mine, and I took it before I bound
him as I did," said Raffles. "I'm only sorry I took so much trouble if
you're going to stay behind and put him in the way of releasing himself
before he gives up the ghost. Perhaps you will go and think it over
while I wash my bags and dry 'em at the gas stove. It will take me at
least an hour, which will just give me time to finish the last volume
of Kinglake."

Long before he was ready to go, however, I was waiting in the hall,
clothed indeed, but not in a mind which I care to recall. Once or
twice I peered into the dining-room where Raffles sat before the stove,
without letting him hear me. He, too, was ready for the street at a
moment's notice; but a steam ascended from his left leg, as he sat
immersed in his red volume. Into the study I never went again; but
Raffles did, to restore to its proper shelf this and every other book
he had taken out and so destroy that clew to the manner of man who had
made himself at home in the house. On his last visit I heard him whisk
off the dust-sheet; then he waited a minute; and when he came out it
was to lead the way into the open air as though the accursed house
belonged to him.

"We shall be seen," I whispered at his heels. "Raffles, Raffles,
there's a policeman at the corner!"

"I know him intimately," replied Raffles, turning, however, the other
way. "He accosted me on Monday, when I explained that I was an old
soldier of the colonel's regiment, who came in every few days to air
the