t the slightest interest.

CHAPTER XIII

THE LOVE OF STAFFORD KING

Maisie White had no illusions. When the report came to her that the
detective she had employed had passed his services over to the man he
was engaged to watch, she knew that the full force of the Boundary Gang
would be employed to her extinction. Strangely enough, she did not
appear to be disturbed, as she confessed to Stafford King. They were
lunching together at the Hotel Palatine and the detective was unusually
thoughtful.

"Why don't you go out of London?" he asked.

"I must go on with my work," she said.

"What is your work?" he asked.

"I have told you once," she replied. "I am trying to disentangle my
father from disgrace. I am working to put him apart when the day of
reckoning comes."

"You've not heard from him?" he asked.

She shook her head, and her eyes filled with tears.

"He has been a good father to me," she said, "the kindest and best of
daddies. It is dreadful to think----" her lips quivered and she could go
no further.

Nor could Stafford King make matters any easier for her. He knew better
than she the depth of Solomon White's commitments. If the gang ever
smashed, and if by good fortune the law ever took its course, there was
no hope for Solomon White's escape from his share of the responsibility.

"Why do you think your father went away?" he asked, to turn the subject
to a new aspect.

She did not reply instantly.

"I think he was scared," she said after a while. "I was shocked when I
discovered how much in awe of the colonel he stood. He was just
terrified at the threat, and yet I know he would have given his life to
protect me from harm. I think it was just I that spurred him on to make
the plans he did."

Stafford King agreed with a gesture.

"Now what are we going to do about you?" he asked, half-humorously,
half-seriously. "I cannot let you go wandering loose about London--I'm
scared to death as it is."

She smiled at him.

"You had better lock me up," she said flippantly and he nodded in the
same spirit.

"I know a little house in St. John's Wood that would serve us
beautifully as a prison," he said. "It has ten rooms and two admirable
bathrooms. There is central heating and a large shady garden, and if you
will only let me take you before a Justice of the Peace, or even a
commonplace clergyman----"

She shook her head.

"That isn't prison," she said quietly and put her hand over the table