visit to them, and that I
would not have the guilty punished. What more did they tell you--about
my doings?"

"Very little; I could hardly understand why they told thus much."

"Did they tell you that I learned, through a scheming rascal in the
guise of a detective, that a plot was growing against you; that I sent
for Ray Vandyck, and set him over you as a temporary guardian? And that
I sent next for Detective Bathurst, warning him that you were surrounded
by enemies. Did they tell you that, when I learned of your arrest, I
left my place by Sybil Lamotte, who is delirious and yet clings to me
constantly, and came to them, offering them all my fortune if they would
only save me you?"

"Did you do this--Constance?"

"I have done this. Have I not earned the right, openly, before all the
world, to be your champion, your truest friend, your--"

"My queen! my darling! my very own!"

All his calm is gone, all his haughtiness of bearing; with one swift
movement he snatches her to his heart, and she rests in his embrace,
shocked at her own boldness, and unspeakably happy.

Who dare intrude upon a lover's interview? Who dares to snatch the first
coy love words from a maiden's lips, and give them to a world grown old
in love making, and appraising each tender word by its own calloused old
heart?

For the time all is forgotten, save one fact, they love each other
well.

By and by, other thoughts come, forcing their way like unwelcome guests.

* * * * *

"Constance," he says, after a long interval, "you have made me anything
but indifferent to my fate. Now I shall begin to struggle for my
freedom; but--do you realize what a network of false testimony they have
woven about me?"

"Do I realize it?" she cried. "Yes, far more than you do, or can,
and--you said something about Frank Lamotte. Has he sought to injure
you?"

"Constance, I thought you knew," turning upon her a look of surprise. "I
thought you knew his guilt. Who, but Frank Lamotte, could gain access to
my office, to purloin my handkerchief and my knife? He had a duplicate
key, and--_I found that key in the old cellar beside the body of John
Burrill_."

The look of perplexity on her face deepens into one of actual distress.

Could it be, that after all, Frank had forestalled that other one?

Back upon her memory came his words, "I can save him if I will." Where
there is room for doubt there is room for hope. What if another