g the tide of her words, and not taking the clinging hands she
put out to him. Her keen mind was on the alert instantly. What was at
the bottom of it all? Perhaps the man was not dead. Perhaps this was
just a little trick of Druro's to slip the toils he felt closing round
his liberty--her toils! Being a trickster herself, she easily
suspected trickery in others. Rapidly she turned the thing over in her
mind. She had no intention of involving herself with a man who had got
to pay the penalty for committing a crime--but nothing simpler for her
than to repudiate him if anything so unpleasant should really arise.
On the other hand, in case he was juggling with the truth, she must
establish a hold, a bond that, being a man of honour, he would not be
able to repudiate. The situation called for the exercise of all the
finesse of which she was mistress. She put away her handkerchief and
looked at him gravely.

"There must be some dreadful mistake."

He shrugged his shoulders rather wearily.

"I don't think so." His manner inferred, "And I don't much care,
either."

"But you must care," she said urgently. "You must fight it, Lundi. If
you won't do it for your own sake"--she came a step nearer to him--"I
ask you to do it for mine." He was staring moodily into the gloom of
the night and the deeper gloom of his own soul. "To make up to me for
the humiliation you have put upon me tonight," she said, almost in a
whisper, "I think I have a right to claim so much."

That jerked him from his dreams. He looked her straight in the eyes.

"If anything I can say or do will make up to you for that, you will
have no need to claim it," he said firmly, and, bowing over her hand,
took his leave. People who saw him go thought he looked more haggard
than when he came. But this was accounted for when, within the hour,
news of the happenings at Glendora sped like wildfire through the town.

Before morning, however, there were certain hopeful tidings to mingle
with the bad, and Marice Hading had cause to congratulate herself on
her foresight in establishing her bond. Capperne was not dead. And
there was hope of saving him. Half his teeth were knocked down his
throat; in falling he had struck his head and cut it open; his heart,
weakened by dissipation, had all but reached its last beat, and lung
complication had set in. But the chances were that, being a worthless,
useless life, precious to no one but himself, he would pul