s for me--I'll lie like a pickpocket and deny every word if you try
to make capital out of it against her."

Cleek laughed, laughed audibly. But there was a note of gratification,
even of admiration, underlying it; and he found himself liking this
loyal, lovable, hot-tempered boy better and better with every passing
moment. But the laughter nettled Geoff, and he was off like a firework
in a winking.

"Look here! I'll tell you what!" he flung out hotly. "If you'll set me
free from this confounded chain and come outside with me and will take a
sporting chance--if you thrash me I'll take my medicine and do whatever
you tell me; but if I thrash you, you're to let me go about my business,
and to say nothing to anybody about what you happened to hear. Now,
then, speak up. Which are you--a man or a mouse?"

"I know which you are, at all events," replied Cleek, with still another
laugh. "You have some most original ideas of the workings of the law,
it must be admitted, if you think Scotland Yard affairs can be settled
in that way."

"You won't come out and stand up to me like a man, then?"

"No, I won't; because if I did I should catch myself wanting to clap you
on the back and shake hands with you, and wishing to heaven that I were
your father. But--wait--stop! You needn't go off like a blessed
skyrocket, my lad. There's still a way to do very much what you have
proposed, and that I was about to mention when you tore at me about Lady
Katharine. I said, if you remember, that you might go farther than
simply give me your word of honour with regard to the gagging part of
the matter, and might save us both a lot of trouble and discomfort."

"Yes, I know you did. Well, what of it? What trouble and discomfort can
be saved?"

"A great deal if you are wise as well as loyal, my boy. It couldn't be a
very pleasant experience for you to pass the night in a place like this.
Nevertheless, it is absolutely imperative that you should not return to
your home to-night, and that your stepmother should have no hint of
where you had gone or what had become of you."

"Why?"

"That's my affair, and you will have to pardon me if I keep it to
myself. Now, then, why not make matters easier and pleasanter for you
and for me by giving me your word of honour that if I let you go free
from this place, and promise not to say one word of what I overheard
pass between you and Lady Katharine Fordham, you will secretly journey
up to London, stop the