er stairs. Margot
flung aside her cigarette and jumped up, the song and the laughter came
to an abrupt end, the door flew open, and with a shout and a cheer a man
bounced into the room.

"Serpice! Ah, _le bon Dieu!_ it is Serpice at last!" cried out Margot in
joyous excitement, as she and the others crowded round him. "Soul of a
sluggard, don't waste time in laughing and capering like this! Speak up,
speak up, you hear? Are we to fly at once to the mill and join him? Has
he succeeded? Is it done?"

"Yes, yes, yes!" shouted back Serpice, throwing up his cap and capering.
"It is done! It is done! Under the very nose of the cracksman, too!
Merode's got them--got them both! The little lordship and the
Mademoiselle Lorne, too! They took the bait like gudgeons; they stepped
into the automobile without a fear, and--whizz! it was off to the mill
like that! La, la, la! We win, we win, we win!"

The shock of the thing was too much for Cleek. Carried out of himself by
the knowledge that the woman he loved was now in peril of her life,
discretion forsook him, blind rage mastered him, and he did one of the
few foolish things of his life.

"You lie, you brute--you lie!" he shouted, jumping up into full view.
"God help the man who lays a hand on her! Let him keep his life from me
if he can!"

"The cracksman!" yelled out Serpice. "The cracksman! The cracksman!"
echoed Margot and the rest. Then a pistol barked and spat, the light
was swept out, a bullet sang past Cleek's ear, and he realised how
foolish he had been. For part of the crowd came surging to the window,
part went in one blind rush for the door to head him off and hem him in,
and, through the din and hubbub rang viciously the voice of Margot
shrilling out: "Kill him! Kill him!" as though nothing but the sight of
his blood would glut the malice of her.

It was neck or nothing now, and the race was to the swift. He dropped
through a gap in the ragged roof--sheer down, like a shot--into the
rubble and refuse below; he lurched through the shed to the door, and
through that to the black passage leading to the street--the clatter on
the higher staircase giving warning of the crowd coming after him--and
flew like a hare hard pressed toward the outer door, and then--just
then, when every little moment counted--there was a scrambling sound, a
chorus of oaths, a slipping, a sliding, a bang on one step and a bump on
another; and, as he darted by, and sprang out into the street, t