o the balcony.

"Mrs. Hatfield will alter all that," he laughed, as he disappeared from
view.

Michael flashed a rageful glance at his back, and then flung himself
into his great armchair again, and pulled the wrinkled mass, which
called itself a prize bulldog, on to his lap.

"I believe he's right and we are caught, Binko. If we fled to the Rocky
Mountains, she would track us. If we stay and face it, she'll make an
almighty scandal and force us to marry her. What in the devil's name are
we to do----!"

Binko licked his master's hands, and made noises, so full of gurgling,
slobbering sympathy, no heart could have remained uncomforted. Who
knows! His canine common sense may have telepathically transmitted a
thought, for Michael suddenly plopped him on the floor, and stalked
toward the fireplace to ring the bell, while he exclaimed, as though
answering a suggestion. "Yes, we'll send for old Bessie--that's the only
way."

But before he could reach his goal, the picture of Mary, Queen of Scots,
landing fell forward with a crash, and through the aperture of a secret
door which it concealed, there tumbled a very young and pretty girl
right into the room.

CHAPTER II

Mr. Arranstoun was extremely startled and annoyed, too, and before he
took in the situation, he had exclaimed, while Binko gave an ominous
growl of displeasure:

"Confound it--who is that! These are private rooms!" Then, seeing it was
a girl on the floor, he said in another voice: "Quiet, Binko--" and the
dog retired to his own basket under a distant table. "Oh, I beg your
pardon--but----"

The creature on the floor blinked at Michael with large, round, violet
eyes, but did not move, while she answered aggrievedly--with a very
faint accent, whether a little French or a little American, or a little
of both, he was not sure, only that it had something attractive about
it.

"You may well say 'but'! I did not mean to intrude upon your private
room--but I had to run away from Mr. Greenbank--he was so horrid--" here
she gasped a little for breath--"and I happened to see something like a
door ajar in the Gainsborough room, so I fled through it, and it
fastened after me with a snap--I could not open it again--and it was
pitch dark in that dreadful passage and not a scrap of air--I felt
suffocated, and I pushed on anywhere--and something gave way and I fell
in here--that's all----"

She rattled this out without a stop, and then stared at Michael wi