certain point----"

Voles swung around at him furiously, as a mastiff might turn on a
wretched mongrel.

"Say, listen! If I'm up to the neck in this business, you're in it over
your ears. You can't duck now, you white-livered cur! The cops know you.
They had you in their hands once, and warned you to leave this girl
alone. If I stand in the dock you'll stand there, too, and I'm not the
man to say the word that'll save you."

"But she's with her aunt. She's under age. Her aunt is her legal
guardian. I know a bit about the law, you see. This notion of yours is
a bird of another color. Sham weddings are no joke. It will mean ten
years."

"Who wants you to go in for a sham wedding, you swab?"

"You do, or I haven't got the hang of things."

Voles looked as though he would like to hammer his argument into Fowle
with his fists. He forebore. There was too much at stake to allow a
sudden access of bad temper to defeat his ends.

He was tired of vagabondage. It was true, as he told his brother long
before, that he hungered for the flesh-pots of Egypt, for the life and
ease and gayety of New York. An unexpected vista had opened up before
him. When he came back to the East his intention was to squeeze funds
out of Meiklejohn wherewith to plunge again into the outer wilderness.
Now events had conspired to give him some chance of earning a fortune
quickly, had not the irony of fate raised the winsome face and figure of
Winifred as a bogey from the grave to bar his path.

So he choked back his wrath, and shoved the decanter of spirits across
the table to his morose companion. They were sitting in the hall of
Gateway House, about the hour that Carshaw and the detective, tired by
their weary hunt through East Orange, sought the inn.

"Now look here, Fowle," he said, "don't be a poor dub, and don't kick at
my way of speaking. _Por Dios!_ man, I've lived too long in the sage
country to scrape my tongue to a smooth spiel like my--my friend, the
Senator. Let's look squarely at the facts. You admire the girl?"

"Who wouldn't? A pippin, every inch of her."

"You're broke?"

"Well--er--"

"You were fired from your last job. You're in wrong with the police. You
adopted a disguise and told lies about Winifred to those who would
employ her. What chance have you of getting back into your trade, even
if you'd be satisfied with it after having lived like a plute for
weeks?"

"That goes," said Fowle, waving his pipe.

"You'd lik