s it. As she stood there before
me in her dark worsted dress and coarse shawl, with her locks simply
braided and her whole person undignified by art and ungraced by
ornament, she seemed just by the power of her expression and the
witchery of her manner, the loveliest woman I had ever beheld.

"You are veree kind, veree good," I murmured, half ashamed of my
disguise, though it was assumed for the purpose of rescuing her. "Your
sympathy goes to my heart." Then as a deep growl of impatience rose from
the room at my side, I motioned her to go and not irritate the man who
seemed to have such control over her.

"In a minute," answered she, "first tell me what you are making."

So I told her and in the course of telling, let drop such other facts
about my fancied life as I wished to have known to her and through her
to her father. She looked sweetly interested and more than once turned
upon me that dark eye, of which I had heard so much, full of tears that
were as much for me, scamp that I was, as for her own secret trouble.
But the growls becoming more and more impatient she speedily turned to
go, repeating, however, as she did so,

"Now remember what I say, you are not to be troubled if they do speak
cross to you. They make noise enough themselves sometimes, as you will
doubtless be assured of to-night."

And the lips which seemed to have grown stiff and cold with her misery,
actually softened into something like a smile.

The nod which I gave her in return had the solemnity of a vow in it.

My mind thus assured as to the correctness of my suspicions, and the way
thus paved to the carrying out of my plans, I allowed some few days
to elapse without further action on my part. My motive was to acquaint
myself as fully as possible with the habits and ways of these two
desperate men, before making the attempt to capture them upon which so
many interests hung. For while I felt it would be highly creditable to
my sagacity, as well as valuable to my reputation as a detective, to
restore these escaped convicts in any way possible into the hands of
justice, my chief ambition after all was to so manage the affair as
to save the wife of Mr. Blake, not only from the consequences of their
despair, but from the publicity and scandal attendant upon the open
arrest of two heavily armed men. Strategy, therefore, rather than force
was to be employed, and strategy to be successful must be founded upon
the most thorough knowledge of the m