but I didn't
admit that it was true. Alice had converted me to the notion that I was
a character in a story, a plaything of fate, and I lightly brushed aside
Antoine's melancholy plaint.

"Any man of you," I said, "who leaves this property will be brought back
and shot. Tell that to the boys!"

Nevertheless, the perfect equanimity of the gentleman in the tool-house
when I visited him the next morning shook my faith a trifle in the
story-book features of life at Barton. He was an exemplary prisoner, the
guards reported, and he had maintained the strictest silence in my
absence. He ate, smoked, and read, courteously thanking the men for
their attentions, and that was all. When I showed myself at the window
he rose and threw down the magazine he was reading and replied
good-naturedly to my inquiry as to how he was getting along.

"I have no complaint except that the guards snore outrageously. The poor
old chaps will sleep, you know."

"If you're so badly guarded, why don't you escape?" I asked tartly.

"It would relieve your mind a lot if I should disappear?" he asked
insinuatingly.

"You are impertinent," I replied, irritated that he should have surmised
that his presence was causing me uneasiness. "If you will come to your
senses and tell me the meaning of your visits here, we may agree upon
terms. As it stands, you're a trespasser; you tried to bribe a servant
to rob the house. If you're at all familiar with criminal law in this
country, you can estimate the number of years' imprisonment that will be
handed you for these little indiscretions."

"If it's all so plain, why don't you hand me over to the authorities?"
he asked, provokingly cool.

"I'm giving you a chance to confess and tell who's back of all this.
Tell me just why your confederate Montani is annoying Mrs. Bashford, and
I'll turn you loose."

"Perhaps, my dear sir, the motive that impels you to detain me
unlawfully is the same that enjoins silence upon me! Please consider
that a little."

I replied that I would consider nothing short of a confession. In a
match of wits he was fully my equal, and in the mastery of his temper he
certainly had the best of me.

"If you wait for me to confess anything, you will wait forever," he
replied. "I repeat that we are impelled by the same motives, you and I.
I think I needn't enlighten you as to what they are."

"I shall be glad to hear your idea of my motives," I answered feebly.

"I shall be frank," he