e ready to stand
by now."

He rose and pushed back his chair. The waiter had brought the bottle
with surprising alacrity, and Shepard poured out a glass for the young
girl. Bobbie stood fumbling with his change as an excuse to watch.
Lorna was engrossed in the bubbling foam of the beer and did not notice
him.

"I guess he's afraid to do it now," thought Bobbie, as he failed to
observe any suspicious move.

True, Shepard's hand passed swiftly over the glass as he handed it to
the girl.

She drank it at his urging, and then suddenly her head sank forward on
her breast.

Bobbie stifled his indignation with difficulty as Shepard gave an
exclamation of surprise.

"My wife! She is sick! She has fainted!" cried Shepard to Burke's
amazement. The man acted his part cunningly.

He had sprung to his feet as he rushed around the table to catch the
toppling girl. With a quick jump to her side Bobbie had caught her by
an arm, but Shepard indignantly pushed him aside.

"How dare you, sir?" he exclaimed. "Take your hands off my wife."

The man's bravado was splendid, and even the diners were impressed.
Most of them laughed, for to them it was only another drunken woman, a
familiar and excruciatingly funny object to most of them.

"Aw, let the goil alone," cried one red-faced man who sat with a small,
heavily rouged girl of about sixteen. "Don't come between man and
wife!" And he laughed with coarse appreciation of his own humor.

Shepard had lifted Lorna with his strong arms and was starting toward
the door. Burke saw the entrance to the men's cafe on the right. He
quietly walked into it, and then hurried toward the front, out through
the big glass door to the street.

There, about twenty feet to his right, he saw the purring taxicab which
he had ordered waiting for a quick run.

In front of the restaurant entrance, now to his left, was another car,
with a chauffeur standing by its open door, expectantly.

Burke ran up just as Shepard emerged from the restaurant entrance. The
officer sprang at the big fellow and dealt him a terrible blow on the
side of the head. The man staggered and his hold weakened. As he did
so Burke caught the inanimate form of the young girl in his own arms.
He turned before Shepard or the waiting chauffeur could recover from
their surprise and ran toward the car at the right. The two men were
after him, but Burke lifted the girl into the machine and cried to the
chauffeur:

"G