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perilous situations. Archie liked Ruth. The Governor had said that she was a bishop's daughter but for all that she might have been the child of a race of swarthy kings.

"You couldn't have thought that I would wait when I knew that you were in a mood to tolerate me or that I might serve you!" said the Governor gravely. "If our presence is likely to prove embarrassing—"

"Oh, Aunt Louise doesn't know the names of half the people here. She never goes out herself; she merely asked old friends and the children of old friends. I really didn't want this party for I'm here on business, and it's about that that I want to speak to you, please!"

"I think," said Archie, ill at ease, "that the moment has come for me to retire."

"We shall not turn you adrift!" cried Ruth. "I have a very dear friend I must introduce you to. Oh—" she hesitated and turned to the Governor, "is Mr. Comly a roamer? Has he a heart for high adventure?"

"He speaks without accent the language of all who love the long brown road."

"Then let him come with me!"

She laid her hand on Archie's arm, and walked toward the wide-flung doors. The orchestra was again summoning the dancers.

"Oh, Isabel!"

Following her gaze he was glad of the slight pressure of her hand on his arm. Here at least was something tangible in a world that tottered toward chaos. For it was Isabel Perry who turned at the sound of Ruth's voice. She was just at the point of gliding away with her partner.

"Miss Perry, Mr. Comly!"

The eyes that had haunted him in his wanderings flashed upon him, then narrowed questioningly.

"Oh, Mr. Comly!" There was the slightest stress on the assumed name. "After this dance—"

She slipped away leaving him staring.

"Please take me back to Mr. Saulsbury," said Ruth. "I've got to cut this dance. I will introduce you to some other girls."

But as no other girls were immediately available he protested that he would do very well and guided her to the Governor.

"Isabel is very busy, as usual," said Ruth, "but if Mr. Comly is a good strategist, he will not fail to find her again. Isabel, you know—"

"Isabel!" exclaimed the Governor. "Not really—"

"Yes, really," Archie answered, his voice hoarse as he raised it above the music.

The Governor struck his gloved hands together smartly. Ruth, turning from a youth to whom she had excused herself, asked quickly:

"What has happened? You both look as though you had seen a ghost."

"It's more mysterious than ghosts. Come; we must make the most of these minutes. Your next partner won't give you up as meekly as that last one did."

Archie saw them a moment later pacing back and forth in one of the walks a little distance from the house. He stationed himself at the door with some other unattached men, and followed Isabel's course over the floor with intent, eager eyes. The dance, to a new and enchanting air, was prolonged and he died many deaths as he watched her, catching tantalizing glimpses of her face only to lose it again.

No one in the happy throng seemed gayer than she; and once as she tripped by he assured himself that there was no hostility in the swift glance she gave him. Seeing her again rilled him with a great happiness untinged with bitterness. Among all the women of the bright company she alone was superb, and not less regal for his remembrance of her anger, the anger that had brought tears to her lovely eyes.

At the conclusion of the number, she remained, to his discomfiture, at the farther end of the platform, and when he hurried forward in the hope of detaching her from the group that surrounded her she did not see him at all, which was wholly discouraging. A partner sought her for the next dance and as the music struck up he made bold to accost her.

"I am not to be eluded!" he said. "I must have at least one dance!"

"My card is filled—but I am reserving a boon for you! You shall have the intermission," and added as by an afterthought, "Mr. Comly," with a delicious mockery.

He passed Ruth, returning to put herself in the path of her next partner.

"This is your punishment for coming late!" laughed the girl. There was happiness in her eyes. "How perfectly ridiculous you two men are!"

"Suppose we talk a bit," said the Governor when they had found a bench on the lawn. He was silent for several minutes, sitting erect with arms folded.

"It's nearing the end!" he said solemnly; "there are other changes and chances perhaps, but the end is in sight. The whole thing was unalterable from the beginning; it makes little difference what we do now. And it's you—it's you that have brought it all about. We are bound together by ties not of earthly making."

He laughed softly, turned and placed his hand on Archie's shoulder.

"You are beginning to believe at last?"

"I don't know what to believe," Archie answered slowly. "There's something uncanny in all this. Just how much do you understand of it?"

"Precious little! Your Isabel and my Ruth are friends; quite intimate friends indeed. In college together, I'd have you know, but I never knew it till now. That's news to you, isn't it?"

"Most astonishing news!"

"And this is the very Isabel who shattered your equanimity; told you to shoot up the world and then treated you like a pick-pocket the next time you met! But as old William said 'Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds.'"

"Don't jump at conclusions! I was just bragging when I gave you the idea that there was anything between us. The love's all on my side! She twitted me about my worthlessness that night in Washington; bade me tear down the heavens. And it oddly happened that from that hour I have never been a free man; I have done things I believed myself incapable of doing."

"You did them rather cheerfully, I must say! But on the whole, nothing very naughty. And I'll prepare you a little for what I prefer you should hear from Isabel—I got it from Ruth—you're not quite finished yet with that pistol shot in the Congdon house. It seems to be echoing round the world!"

CHAPTER FIVE I

"In spite of my warnings you continue to follow me!" said Isabel when they were established in the supper room.

"Are we to have another row? I don't believe I can go through with it."

"No; for rows haven't got us anywhere. And Ruth whispered to me a moment ago to be very nice to you. While the gentleman on the other side of me is occupied we might clear up matters a little."

"It's not in my theory of life to explain things; I tried explaining myself at Portsmouth and again at Bennington but you were singularly unsympathetic. Please be generous and tell me why you were skipping over New England, darting through trains and searching hotel registers and manifesting uneasiness when policemen appeared. You recommended a life of lawlessness to me but I didn't know you meant to go in for that sort of thing yourself."

"It occurred to me after the Bennington interview that I might have been unjust, but I was in a humor to suspect every one. When you said you'd shot Putney Congdon you frightened me to death. Of course you did nothing of the kind!"

"This is wonderful chicken salad," he said, hastily. "I beg you to do it full justice. The people about us mustn't get the idea that we're discussing homicide. Now, to answer your question, I had shot Mr. Putney Congdon and in edging away from the scene of my bloodshed I was guilty of other indiscretions that made me chatter like a maniac when I saw you. It was such a joke that you should turn up when I was doing just what you prescribed for me as a cure for my ills. I am quite calm now, and my health is so good that when the waiter brings those little pocket rolls this way I shall take a second and perhaps a third."

"My own nerves had gone to pieces or I shouldn't have flared as I did at Portsmouth and I was even more irresponsible when I saw you in that parlor car at Bennington."

"You saw me kiss a girl on the train. Miss Perry, I will not deceive you about that. She was all but a stranger, and I had assisted her to elope. Her husband was hiding in the baggage car."

"He would have thrown himself under the wheels if he had witnessed that ardent kissing! I confess that I hadn't done justice to your fascinations. And you were not her guardian, or anything like that?"

"Certainly not. She's a dairy maid I married to a diamond thief by mistake. My ignorance of women is complete. Sally Walker's duplicity wasn't necessary to convince me of that but your own conduct completely crushed my vanity."

"The crushing has improved you, I think. Please don't think that because I am showing you so much tolerance I am wholly satisfied that you weren't trying to thwart my own criminal adventures. When we met at Portsmouth I was trying to meet poor Mrs. Congdon somewhere to help kidnap her little girl!"

"Edith—a lovely child," Archie remarked, and picked up the napkin that slipped from her knees. He enjoyed her surprise. "Please don't scorn the ice cream; you will find it very refreshing. As you were saying—"

"If I hadn't been warned by Ruth that you were to be trusted in this business I should begin screaming. How did you know the child's name? What do you know about the Congdons?"

"Volumes! Let my imagination play on your confession. You were trying to find Mrs. Congdon and whisk the child away to your camp, when I ran into you. You had missed connections with the mother and thought I was trying to embarrass or frustrate you? I had troubles of my own and you couldn't have done me a greater wrong!"

"Mrs. Congdon was in a panic, skipping about with the children to avoid her husband; but it was really her father-in-law who was pursuing her. He's a miserly, disagreeable wretch! I came here to meet Ruth, who is an old friend of hers, hoping she might be able to deliver the little girl to me undetected. I met both Mr. and Mrs. Congdon once, several years ago, at a dinner in Chicago, but I can hardly say that I know them. Ruth's to be the chief councilor of my camp—so interested in my scheme that she insisted on going up there to help me. And Mrs. Congdon thought that would be a fine place to hide her Edith while the family rumpus was on. I was to run with Edith as hard as I could for Heart o' Dreams, my girls' camp, you know, up in Michigan."

"How stupid I am! With a word you might have made unnecessary our two altercations!"

"The matter, as you can see, is very delicate, even hazardous. I had never been a kidnaper and when you saw me on those two occasions I was terribly alarmed, not finding Mrs. Congdon where she expected to be. And I must say that you added nothing to my peace of mind."

"Please note that I am drinking coffee at midnight! I shouldn't have dared do that before your cheering advice in Washington. We have but a moment more, and I shall give you in tabloid form my adventures to date."

It was the Isabel of the Washington dinner party who listened. She was deeply interested and amused, and at times he had the satisfaction of reading in her face what he hopefully interpreted as solicitude for his safety. He confined himself to essentials so rigidly that

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