, to the horse-yard. And she was just in time to hear
the dying beat of a horse's canter into infinity.

Then she must inform the wretch himself, the runaway ruffian in the
store! One sob came, and then this quick resolve.

She gained the store, panting; and instinctively tried the door before
knocking. To her amazement and alarm it was open. She stood confounded
on the threshold, and a head bending over the desk, under the lamp,
behind the counter, was suddenly transformed into a face. And it was not
the runaway at all; it was Rigden himself!

"I saw you come out!" she gasped, past recrimination, past anger, past
memory itself in the semi-insensibility of over-whelming surprise. He
looked at her very gravely across the desk.

"No, that was the man who has wrecked my life," he said. "I've got him
through them at last, I do believe."

And his eyes flashed their unworthy triumph.

"You could actually give him your horse!"

"I wish I could. It would be missed in a minute. No, he's only just to
run the gauntlet on it, and I shall find it at the first gate. But what
is it, Moya? You came for something?" and he was a miserable man once
more.

"I'm ashamed to say why I came--but I will!" cried Moya in a low voice.
"I did not want you to be found out through my own brother. He suspected
the man was in here--I don't know why. He was going to watch the store
all night, and I was watching it for him while he changed, and the light
under the door----"

Rigden held up his hand.

"Hush!" he said. "Here _is_ your brother."

Theodore was more than decent; he was positively gorgeous in striped and
tasselled silk. He stood in the doorway with expressive eyebrows and
eloquent nostrils, looking from Moya to Rigden until his gaze settled
upon the latter. It was almost an innocuous gaze by then.

"So it was you in here," he said. Rigden nodded. "Do you know who I was
ass enough to think it was?" continued Theodore, using a word which Moya
had never heard him apply to himself before, even in fun. "Has Moya told
you?"

"She has."

"I saw the light," said Moya, in elliptical explanation. Theodore
continued to address his host.

"I oughtn't to have interfered," he said, with a humility which was
already arousing Moya's suspicions. "I should have minded my own
business, Rigden, and I apologise. I'd got it into my head--I can't tell
you why. Will you forgive me? And have you any more whisky?"

"I've nothing to forgive," said R