erly--"who knew better!--to have
delayed here, exposing you to this danger--!"

"It couldn't be helped," Sofia insisted; "you had to make me understand.
Besides, if I hurry back--"

In quick strides Lanyard crossed to the corridor door, unlatched and opened
it an inch, peered out, and gave the sum of what he saw in a gesture of
finality, then leaving the door ajar turned swiftly back to the girl.

"Too late," he said: "they're swarming out into the hall like bees. In
another minute ..."

Of a sudden he closed with Sofia, roughly clasping her body to him.

"Struggle with me!" he pleaded--"get me by the throat, throw me back across
the desk--"

"What do you mean? Let me go!"

In answer to her efforts to wrench away, Lanyard only tightened his hold
and swung her toward the desk.

"Do as I bid you! It's the only way out. Let them think you heard a noise,
got up to investigate, found me here, rifling the safe--"

"No," she insisted--"no! Why should I save myself at your expense?--betray
you--my father--!"

"Then give me the obedience of a daughter ... or let Victor succeed in
branding you a thief, the daughter of a thief!"

He stilled the protest she would have uttered by placing fingers over her
lips.

"Listen!"

In the corridor an angry rumour of voices, alarmed calls and cries, with
thumps and scuffles of hasty feet, in the bedchamber the shrieks persisting
without the least hint of failing: as a damned soul might bawl upon its bed
of coals ...

"Sofia, I implore you!"

Still she hesitated.

"But you--?"

"Never fear for me, remember that I am of the Secret Service: two minutes
after I see the inside of the nearest police station, I shall be free--and
happy in the assurance that your name is without stain. Then Karslake will
come for you, bring you to me ... Now!"

Lanyard caught the girl's two wrists together and, throwing himself bodily
backward across the desk, carried her hands to his throat.

With a simultaneous crash the door was flung back to the wall. Led by
Victor Vassilyevski a dozen men, guests and servants, in various stages of
dishabille, streamed into the room.

XX

THE DEVIL TO PAY

When it was all over, when the gravelled drive no longer crunched to wheels
that bore away the man Nogam to answer for his misdeeds, when the household
had quieted down and the most indefatigable sensation-monger had wearied of
singing the praises of the Princess Sofia and, tossing off a final