ore the assembled critics
in the morning and proclaim to them that Constance was his wife. From
this, it readily may be judged that Brock was not familiar with all the
details of the vigorous Miss Fowler's plan. As a matter of fact, he did
not know that he was expected to fly the country like a fugitive. She
had known in her heart that he would never agree to a plan of that sort;
it was, therefore, necessary for her to deceive him in more ways than
one. Plainly speaking, Brock had laboured under the delusion that she
merely proposed to bribe the gaoler into letting him off for the night,
in order that by some hook or crook they could be married early in the
morning--provided her conception of the State marriage laws as they
applied to aliens was absolutely correct. (It was not correct, it may be
well to state, although that has nothing to do with the case at this
moment.) If he had but known that she contemplated paying ten thousand
crowns for his surreptitious release, making herself criminally liable,
and that he was expected to catch a night train across the border, it is
only just to his manhood to say that he should have balked, even though
the act were to cost him years of prison servitude--which, of course,
was unlikely in the face of the explanation that would be made in proper
time by the real Medcroft. It thus may be seen that Brock not only had
been vilely imprisoned twice in the same night, but that he was very
much in the dark, notwithstanding his attempt to make light of the
situation.

It occurred to him, at two o'clock, that pacing the floor in the agony
of suspense was a very useless occupation. He would go to bed. Morning
would bring relief and surcease to his troubled mind. Constance was
doubtless sound asleep in her room. Everything would have been explained
to her long before this hour; she would understand. So, with the return
of his old sophistry, he undressed and crawled into the strange bed.
Somehow he did not like it as well as the cot in the balcony below.

Just as he was dropping off into the long-delayed slumber, he heard a
light tapping at his door. He sat up in bed like a flash, thoroughly
wide awake. The rapping was repeated. He called out in cautious tones,
asking who was there, at the same time slipping from bed to fumble in
the darkness for his clothes.

"'Sh!" came from the hallway. He rushed over and put his ear to the
door. "It is I. Are you awake? I can't stay here. It's wrong. L