d mopped his
forehead.) He was planning to deliberately deceive Madame Forsyth, to
steal a young and very unusual girl from her parent--and, to assume the
guardianship of this same runaway. Where would it all end?

But in that half-hour just past something must have happened to the
little man's conscience for even after the startling summing up, he
laughed and walked on with a step lighter than before.

* * * * *

Back on the fifth floor of the old house in Patchin Place Robin leaned
over the table writing a letter. Her task was made the more difficult
because of the tears which blinded her eyes.

"Jimmie, I love you more than anything in the world but I am going to
run away and leave you. I am going to the Dragon. She wants an heir. I
am going to live in the castle and have a tutor. And my guardian is
going to be the Dragon's lawyer--he's ever so nice and fathery--so you
see I will be looked after as well as can be. Jimmie dearest-darling,
you must not worry about me or try to make me come back for I'll be all
right and you must go away with Mr. Tony and paint lots and I'll be so
proud. And please, please Jimmie, make Aunt Milly promise to take care
of the birds and the flowers for they mustn't die. And you will write to
me, won't you? Good-bye, Jimmie, don't forget your hot milk at night.
Yours always and always, Red-Robin."

She had just signed the letter when James Forsyth opened the door. She
thrust it into her pocket as she turned to meet him.

"Oh, _Jimmie_!" she cried, for under his arm he carried the picture he
had taken to sell to Mrs. Wycke.

"She didn't want it," he explained, testily.

The girl had been well schooled in disappointment; not the slightest
shadow now crossed her face.

"_Someone_ will, Jimmie," she declared, brightly, taking the heavy
package from him. "And you said yourself Mrs. Wycke couldn't tell a
chromo from a masterpiece. We don't want her to have our picture anyway.
I'm not a bit hungry--are you, Jimmie? Let's sit here all cosy and you
read to me--" and thinking of the note that lay in her pocket, she
reached up very suddenly and kissed her Jimmie to hide the break in her
voice.

CHAPTER V

JIMMIE

Robin found running away amazingly simple. Poor Jimmie, at her urging,
went out quite unsuspecting. She was so excited and there was so much to
be done at the last moment, that she had no time to think what the
parting with all she loved