ing the Apache's flight. Dupont had gained the second
storey while Lanyard was still fighting up from his fall. The last
report and the crash of the front door slammed behind Dupont were as
one heartbeat to the next.

Lanyard pillowed his head on a forearm and lay sobbing for breath.
Liane Delorme turned and ran to the front of the house.

Presently she came back drooping, sank into a chair and with lacklustre
eyes regarded the man at her feet.

"He got away," she said superfluously, in a faint voice. "I saw him in
the street ... staggering like a sot..."

At that moment Lanyard could not have mustered a show of interest had
he been told Dupont was returning at the head of a horde. He closed his
tired eyes and envied the lucky dead whose rest was independent of
bruised flesh and aching bones. Neither, he supposed, were dreams
poisoned by chagrin when what was mortal no longer mattered.... Three
times had he come to grips with Dupont and, though he had been
outnumbered on the road to Nant, in Lanyard's sight the honours were
far from easy. Neither would they be while yet the other lived or was
at large...

The bitterness of failure and defeat had so rank a flavour in his
thoughts that nothing else in life concerned him now. He had forgotten
Liane Delorme for minutes when her arm passed beneath his shoulders and
tried to lift them from the floor. He looked up then with listless
eyes, and saw her on one knee by his side, giving him in his turn that
confident and reassuring smile with which he had greeted her reviving
senses ... a long, long time ago, it seemed.

"Come!" she said--"sit up, monsieur, and take this drink. It will lend
you strength. You need it."

God knew he did! His throat was like a furnace flue, his mouth held the
taste of leather. But for that thirst, indeed, he could hardly have
found the energy to aid her efforts and lurch upon an elbow. A
white-hot lancet pierced his wound, and though he locked his teeth
against it a groan forced out between them. The woman cried out at the
rapid ebb of colour from his face.

"But you are suffering!"

He forced a grey smile. "It is nothing," he whispered hoarsely--"it
will pass. If you please--that drink----"

She put a knee behind his shoulders for support, and he rested his head
back upon it and drank deep from the glass which she held to his lips.
Nectar of Olympus was never more divine than that deep draught of
brandy and soda. He thought he quaffed Li