, "is to make an effective
demonstration"; and after that word, MacIan looked at his vision again
and found it smaller than ever.

"It would be in the newspapers, of course," said the girl. "People read
the newspapers, but they don't believe them, or anything else, I think."
And she sighed again.

She drove in silence a third of a mile before she added, as if
completing the sentence: "Anyhow, the whole thing's quite absurd."

"I don't think," began Turnbull, "that you quite realize----Hullo!
hullo--hullo--what's this?"

The amateur chauffeur had been forced to bring the car to a staggering
stoppage, for a file of fat, blue policemen made a wall across the way.
A sergeant came to the side and touched his peaked cap to the lady.

"Beg your pardon, miss," he said with some embarrassment, for he knew
her for a daughter of a dominant house, "but we have reason to believe
that the gentlemen in your car are----" and he hesitated for a polite
phrase.

"I am Evan MacIan," said that gentleman, and stood up in a sort of
gloomy pomp, not wholly without a touch of the sulks of a schoolboy.

"Yes, we will get out, sergeant," said Turnbull, more easily; "my name
is James Turnbull. We must not incommode the lady."

"What are you taking them up for?" asked the young woman, looking
straight in front of her along the road.

"It's under the new act," said the sergeant, almost apologetically.
"Incurable disturbers of the peace."

"What will happen to them?" she asked, with the same frigid clearness.

"Westgate Adult Reformatory," he replied, briefly.

"Until when?"

"Until they are cured," said the official.

"Very well, sergeant," said the young lady, with a sort of tired common
sense. "I am sure I don't want to protect criminals or go against
the law; but I must tell you that these gentlemen have done me a
considerable service; you won't mind drawing your men a little farther
off while I say good night to them. Men like that always misunderstand."

The sergeant was profoundly disquieted from the beginning at the mere
idea of arresting anyone in the company of a great lady; to refuse one
of her minor requests was quite beyond his courage. The police fell back
to a few yards behind the car. Turnbull took up the two swords that were
their only luggage; the swords that, after so many half duels, they were
now to surrender at last. MacIan, the blood thundering in his brain
at the thought of that instant of farewell, bent over