the edge of
the washstand.

"What's your proposition?" he snarled. "Curse you, name your price, and
have done with it! You're as big a crook as I am!"

"You are impatient!" The Adventurer's shoulders went up again. "In due
time the rajah decided that a trip through Europe and back home through
America would round out his son's education, and broaden and fit him for
his future duties in a way that nothing else would. It was also decided,
I need hardly say to my intense delight, that I should accompany him.
We come now to our journey through the United States--you see, Danglar,
that I am omitting everything but the essential details. In a certain
city in the Middle West--I think you will remember it well, Danglar--the
young rajah met with an accident. He was out riding in the outskirts of
the city. His horse took fright and dashed for the river-bank. He was an
excellent horseman, but, pitched from his seat, his foot became tangled
in the stirrup, and as he hung there head down, a blow from he horse's
hoof rendered him unconscious, and he was being dragged along, when
a man by the name of Deemer, at the risk of his own life, saved the
rajah's son. The horse plunged over the bank and into the water with
both of them. They were both nearly drowned. Deemer, let me say in
passing, did one of the bravest things that any man ever did. Submerged,
half drowned himself, he stayed with the maddened animal until he had
succeeded in freeing the unconscious man. All this was some two years
ago."

The Adventurer paused.

Rhoda Gray, hanging on his words, was leaning tensely forward--it seemed
as though some great, dawning wonderment was lifting her out of herself,
making her even unconscious of her surroundings.

"The rajah's son remained at the hotel there for several days to
recuperate," continued the Adventurer deliberately; "and during that
time he saw a great deal of Deemer, and, naturally, so did I. And,
incidentally, Danglar, though I thought nothing much of it then, I saw
something of you; and something of Mrs. Danglar there, too, though--if
she will permit me to say it--in a more becoming costume than she is now
wearing!" Once more he shrugged his shoulders as Danglar snarled. "Yes,
yes; I will hurry. I am almost through. While it was not made public
throughout the country, inasmuch as the rajah's son was more or less an
official guest of the government, the details of the accident were of
course known locally, as also w