there anything I can do? Are you alone--I mean, is
there anyone to take care of you?"

Celia was touched by the kindly, paternal note in his voice; the
tears--they were those of joy and relief--rose to her eyes.

"No, I am alone," she said. "But I am all right; it was only a momentary
faintness. I will deliver your message."

He bowed, murmured his thanks and, with another glance of pity and
concern for her loneliness and weakness, he turned away--this time for
good.

Celia leant against the table, her hands closed tightly. "It is all
right," rang in her ears, thrilled in her heart.

"Oh, thank God, thank God!"

But the cry of thanksgiving changed to one of dismay.

The words evidently meant that the young man's innocence had been proved
or the charge had been withdrawn; but, whichever it meant, the message
had come too late. Oh, what had she done! She had saved his life, but
she had made him a fugitive, had condemned him to the cruellest of
fates, that of a doomed man flying from justice. Instinctively,
mechanically, she flew for her hat and jacket; then she realized, with
bitterness, the hopelessness of any such quest as that which, for an
instant, she had thought of undertaking. If she had known his name,
anything about him, the search would have been difficult; with her
complete ignorance it was an impossible one. She flung aside her outdoor
things with a gesture of despair.

CHAPTER IV

The young man whose life Celia had saved crossed the courtyard of the
building, and walked quickly into Victoria Street. Though he was a
fugitive, there was nothing furtive in his gait, and he looked straight
before him with a preoccupied air. As a matter of fact, he was not
thinking at that moment of his own escape, but of the face which had
looked down on him over the rail of the corridor. If Celia had been
moved by the expression in his eyes, as he looked up at her, he was
still more impressed by the tender, womanly pity in hers; and he was so
lost in the thought of all that she had done for him, of her courage and
compassion, that there was no room in his mind for any anxiety on his
own account.

But presently the sight of a policeman recalled Derrick Dene to the
peril of the situation. He fingered the five-pound note in his pocket
and stood at the corner of a street hesitating; then, with a little
gesture of determination, he walked on again quickly in the direction of
Sloane Square, reached it, and turning