n a very
dear friend of mine! Oh, Rudolph, Rudolph! And I a helpless prisoner!"

As he anticipated, this outburst of emotion was not without its effect.

"I am so sorry!" she said. "I--I don't believe, Count Bunker, you are as
guilty as father says!"

"I swear to you I am not!"

"Can I--help you?"

He thought swiftly.

"Is there any one about the house just now?"

"Oh yes; the keeper is stationed in the hall!"

"Miss Wallingford, if you would atone for a deep injury which you have
inadvertently done an innocent man, bring me fifty feet of stout rope!
And, I say, see that the door of the bicycle house is left unlocked.
Will you do this?"

"I--I'll try."

A sound on the stairs alarmed her, and with a fleeting smile of sympathy
she was gone and the door locked upon him again.

Again the time passed slowly by, and he was left to ponder over the
critical nature of the situation as revealed by the luckless Baron's
intelligence. Clearly he must escape to-night, at all hazards.

"What's that? My rope?" he wondered.

But it was only the arrival of his dinner, brought as before upon a tray
and set just within the door, as though they feared for the bearer's
life should he venture within reach of this desperate adventurer from
Uruguay.

"A very large dish for a very small appetite," he thought, as he bore
his meal over to the bed and drew his chair up before it.

It looked indeed as though a roasted goose must be beneath the cover.
He raised it, and there, behold! lay a large coil of excellent new rope.
The Count chuckled.

"Commend me to the heart and the wit of women! What man would ever have
provided so dainty a dish as this? Unless, indeed" (he had the breadth
of mind to add) "it happened to be a charming adventuress who was in
trouble."

Drinking the half pint of moderate claret which they had allowed him
to the happiness and prosperity of all true-hearted women, he could not
help regretting that his imprisoned confederate should be so unlikely to
enjoy similar good fortune.

"He went too far with those two dear girls. A woman deceived as he
has deceived them will never forgive him. They'd stand sentry at
his cell-door sooner than let the poor Baron escape," he reflected
commiserately, and sighed to think of the disastrous effect this
mishap might have both upon his friend's diplomatic career and domestic
felicity.

While waiting for the dusk to deepen, and endeavoring to console himself
for the lac