t and shawl in which she had left her father's
presence. I at once endued myself in these articles of apparel--taking
care to draw the shawl well over my head--and with a pocket handkerchief
to my face, (a proceeding made natural enough by the sneeze which at
that very moment I took care should assail me) walked boldly back to the
room from which she had just come.

The door was of course ajar, and as I swung it open with as near a
simulation of her manner as possible, the vision of her powerful
father lolling on a bench directly before me, offered anything but an
encouraging spectacle to my eyes. But doubling myself almost together
with as ladylike an atch-ee as my masculine nostrils would allow, I
succeeded in closing the door and reaching a low stool by the window
without calling from him anything worse than a fretful "I hope you are
not going to bark too."

I did not reply to this of course, but sat with my face turned towards
the street in an attitude which I hoped would awaken his attention
sufficiently to cause him to get up and come over to my side. For as he
sat face to the door it would be impossible to take him by surprise, and
that, now that I saw what a huge and muscular creature he was, seemed
to me to be the only safe method before us. But, whether from the
sullenness of his disposition or the very evident laziness of the
moment, he manifested no disposition to move, and hearing or thinking I
did, the stealthy advance of Mr. Gryce and his companions down the hall,
I allowed myself to give way to a suppressed exclamation, and leaning
forward, pressed my forehead against the pane of glass before me as
if something of absorbing interest had just taken place in the street
beneath.

His fears at once took alarm. Bounding up with a curse, he strode
towards me, muttering,

"What's up now? What's that you are looking at?" reaching my side just
as Mr. Gryce and his two men softly opened the door and with a quick
leap threw their arms about him, closing upon him with a force he could
not resist, desperate as he was and mighty in the huge strength of an
unusually developed muscular organization.

"You, you girl there, are to blame for this!" came mingled with curses
from his lips, as with one huge pant he submitted to his captors. "Only
let me get my hand well upon you once--Damn it!" he suddenly exclaimed,
dragging the whole three men forward in his effort to get his mouth down
to my ear, "go and rub that sig