knew what you'd do for me in return if I
succeeded."

"Why, I'd thank you a thousand times!" I cried. "I'd--I'd never forget
you as long as I live."

"There's not much in that for me. I hate being thanked for things. And
what good would it do me to be remembered by you at a distance, perhaps
married to some beast or other?"

"But if I marry I sha'n't marry a beast," I sweetly assured my
forty-fourth cousin four times removed.

"I should think any man you married a beast, if he wasn't me," said Jim.

"Good heavens!" I breathed. "Surely _you_ don't want to marry me!"

"Surely I do," he retorted. "And what's more, you know it jolly well."

"I don't."

"You do. You've known it ever since that affair of the yacht. If you
hadn't, you wouldn't have asked me to hide the Scarlett kid. I knew then
that you knew. And you'd be a fool if you hadn't known--which you're
not."

I said no more, because--I was found out! I _had_ known. Only, I hadn't
let myself think about it much--until lately perhaps. But now and then I
_had_ thought. I'd thought quite a good deal.

When he had me silenced, Jim went on:

"Just like a woman! You're willing to let me sacrifice all my
engagements and inclinations to start off on a wild-goose chase for you,
while you give nothing in return----"

"But I would!" I cut in.

"What would you give?"

"What do you want?"

"Yourself, of course."

"Oh!"

"If you'll marry me in case I find out that someone's been playing a
devil's trick on Lorillard," said Jim, "I'll do--my damnedest! How's
that?"

I shrugged my shoulders, and looked debonair; which was easy, as my nose
is that shape. Yet my heart pounded.

"You seem to think the sacrifice of your engagements and inclinations
worth a big price!"

"I know it's a big price," he granted. "But every man has his price.
That happens to be mine. You may not have to pay, however, even in the
event of my success. Because, in the course of my operations I may do
something that'll land me in quod. In that case, you're free. I wouldn't
mate you with a gaol bird."

I stared, and gasped.

"What do you mean?"

"Don't you know me intimately enough to be sure that once I'm on the
warpath I stop at nothing?" he challenged.

"I don't think you'd be easy to stop," I said. "That's why I've called
on you to help me. But really, I can't understand what there is in the
thing to send you to prison."

"You don't need to understand," snorted Jim. "I sha'n't