obtained her spoken consent to do
what I have done."

"Mary," Haredale burst out, "I know it is taking a mean advantage to
plead that if I had not been so unutterably wretched and depressed I
never could have doubted, but--will you forgive me?"

Whatever its ethical merits or demerits, it was the right, the one
appeal. And it served.

Severac Bablon watched the reconciliation with a smile upon his handsome
face. Though clearly but a young man, he could at will invest himself
with the aloof but benevolent dignity of a father-confessor.

"The cloud has passed," he said. "I have a word for you, Sir Richard.
You have learnt to-night some of my secrets--my appearance, my
residence, and the identities of two of my friends. I do not regret
this, although I am a 'wanted man.' Only to-night I have committed a
gross outrage which, with the circulation of to-morrow's papers, will
cry out for redress to the civilised world. You are at liberty to act as
you see fit. I would wish, as a favour, that you grant me thirty-six
hours' grace--as Miss Oppner already has done. On my word--if you care
to accept it--I shall not run away. At the end of that time I will again
offer you the choice of detaining me or of condoning what I have done
and shall do. Which is it to be?"

Haredale did not feel sure of himself. In fact, the episodes of that
night seemed, now, like happenings in a dream--a dream from which he yet
was not fully awakened. He glanced from Mary to the incomprehensible man
who was so completely different from anything he had pictured, from
anything he ever had known. He looked about the bare, cell-like
apartment, illuminated by the soft light of the globe upon the massive
table. He thought of the Arab who had admitted him--of the entire
absence of subterfuge where subterfuge was to be expected.

"I will wait," he said.

But in less than thirty-six hours the world had news of Severac Bablon.

At a time roughly corresponding with that when Mr. Aloys. X. Alden was
standing, temporarily petrified with astonishment, in a certain room of
the Hotel Astoria, two gentlemen in evening attire burst into a
Wandsworth police station. One was a very angry Irishman, the other a
profane Scot, whose language, which struck respectful awe to the hearts
of two constables, a sergeant, and an inspector--would have done credit
to the most eloquent mate in the mercantile marine.

He fired off a volley of redundant but gorgeously florid adjecti