they were set.

There was something rather touching in his boyish faith that Peter
would be able, even at the last moment, to save the woman he loved.

With unwonted forethought, born of the urgent need of the moment, he
despatched the following telegram to Peter:

"_Coming to see you. Arrive London to-night seven-thirty. Very
urgent. Sandy McBain._"

"Well, young Sandy McBain?"

Peter looked up from a table littered with manuscript. His face, a
moment before rather troubled and stern, relaxed into a friendly smile,
although the fingers of one hand still tapped restlessly on a sheet of
paper that lay beside him--a cablegram from India which had evidently
been the subject of his thoughts at the moment of Sandy's arrival.

"What's the urgent matter? Have you got into a hole and want a
friendly haul-out? If so, I'm your man."

Sandy looked down wretchedly at the fine-cut face with its kind eyes
and sensitive mouth.

"Oh, don't!" he said hastily, checking the friendly welcome as though
it hurt him. "It--it isn't me. . . . It's Nan."

Peter sat quite still, only the hand that held his pen tightened in its
grip.

"Nan!" he repeated, and something in the tone of his voice as he
uttered the little name seemed to catch at Sandy's heart-strings and
sent a sudden unmanageable lump up into his throat.

"Yes, Nan," he answered. Then, with a rush: "She's gone . . . gone
away with Maryon Rooke."

The penholder snapped suddenly. Peter tossed the pieces aside and rose
quietly to his feet.

"When?" he asked tensely.

"Now--to-day. If they've come to London, they'll be here very soon.
They were in his car--I saw them on the London road. . . . And she
left a letter for me. . . . Oh, good God, Mallory! Can't you save
her--can't you save her?" And Sandy grabbed the older man by the
shoulder and stared at him with feverish eyes.

Throughout the whole journey from Exeter to London he had been
revolving the matter in his mind, thinking . . . thinking . . .
thinking . . . to the ceaseless throb and hum of the train as it raced
over the metals, and now he felt almost as though his brain would burst.

Peter pushed him down into a chair.

"You shall tell me all about it in a minute," he said quietly.
Crossing the room to a cupboard in the wall, he took down a decanter
and glass and poured out a stiff dose of whisky.

"There--drink that," he said, squirting in the soda-water. "You'll be
all right directly,