golden snake gliding on the face of the
dark waters. The phenomenon was evidently caused by the port-hole lights
of an electrically-lit steamer.

The watcher drew a deep breath of satisfaction. "Brant has lost no time
in getting under weigh," he muttered, as he softly shut the door.

CHAPTER XXII

THE SHADOW OF HORROR

Leslie Chermside, having taken his seat in the launch, felt more at ease
in his mind than he had done for many a day. Ever since he had been told
of the suspicion that threatened him in respect of Levison's death, he
had been reconciling himself to the loss of Violet. That dream of
midsummer madness had from the first, he realized, from the nature of
the circumstances, been doomed to a rude awakening, in spite of Aunt
Sarah's generosity. The shattering of his ill-starred love idyll might
be borne manfully, as an adequate punishment for his iniquity, and when
time had healed his wound he might even rejoice in his expiation.

But with very different feelings had he viewed the possible revelation
of his misdeed. That simply would not bear thinking about. That Violet
should ever know that he had sought her out in order that her proud
young beauty should be offered as an unwilling sacrifice to a licentious
Eastern prince was an ever-present nightmare that set him trembling like
a frightened child.

And now the strain was over. By his flight he had escaped the terrible
disclosures which would have followed arrest, no matter what the
verdict might have been. That Violet would resent his conduct and
despise him for it he could not help. Even if Nugent kept his promise of
trying to soften it down, the girl's displeasure was inevitable, but it
would be as heaven to hell compared with the ignominy he would have
incurred by full disclosure. And, to do him justice, he had not been
wholly selfish in shrinking from that ignominy. He knew his sweetheart's
pure faith in him, and he had been honestly anxious to spare her
virginal soul the shock of discovering the loathsome thing from which
her short-lived romance had sprung. It might even have been her
death-wound--to find that she, the coldly-critical social queen, had
surrendered, after so brief a wooing, to a miscreant who had set out to
sell her into bondage.

Now, if his luck held, that hideous spectre of disgrace was laid for
ever. He would go forth a lonely and a penniless man, to commence life
afresh with what courage he could muster in some refuge