pince-nez perched on his nose, looked down at the young man.

"I am not going to tell you that I was against the idea from the
beginning, because that is unnecessary. I ought to have put my foot down
and stopped it. I heard you were pretty clever with a gun, Stanford. Why
didn't you sail in and rescue the girl as soon as you found where she
was?"

"I don't think there would have been a ghost of a chance," said the
other, looking up. "I am not finding excuses, but I am telling you what
I know. There were four or five men in the house and they were all
pretty tough citizens--I doubt if I would have made it that way."

"You think he would have married her?"

"He admitted as much," said Stanford Beale, "the parson was already
there when I butted in."

"What steps are you taking to deal with this man van Heerden?"

Beale laughed helplessly.

"I cannot take any until Miss Cresswell recovers."

"Mrs. Beale," murmured Kitson, and the other went red.

"I guess we'll call her Miss Cresswell, if you don't mind," he said
sharply, "see here, Mr. Kitson, you needn't make things worse than they
are. I can do nothing until she recovers and can give us a statement as
to what happened. McNorton will execute the warrant just as soon as we
can formulate a charge. In fact, he is waiting downstairs in the hope of
seeing----" he paused, "Miss Cresswell. What does the doctor say?"

"She's sleeping now."

"It's maddening, maddening," groaned Beale, "and yet if it weren't so
horrible I could laugh. Yesterday I was waiting for a 'hobo' to come out
of delirium tremens. To-day I am waiting for Miss Cresswell to recover
from some devilish drug. I've made a failure of it, Mr. Kitson."

"I'm afraid you have," said the other dryly; "what do you intend doing?"

"But does it occur to you," asked Kitson slowly, "that this lady is not
aware that she has married you and that we've got to break the news to
her? That's the part I don't like."

"And you can bet it doesn't fill me with rollicking high spirits,"
snapped Beale; "it's a most awful situation."

"What are you going to do?" asked the other again.

"What are you going to do?" replied the exasperated Beale, "after all,
you're her lawyer."

"And you're her husband," said Kitson grimly, "which reminds me." He
walked to his desk and took up a slip of paper. "I drew this out against
your coming. This is a certified cheque for L400,000, that is nearly two
million dollars, which I am aut