thank you for coming. You've
saved my life. Can't I help? I might go to the telephone and call----"

"No. Do nothing of the sort," her neighbour commanded. "There must be no
ructions in your room. I'm going to take this thing to my quarters. The
story'll be, he was getting into my window when I waked up and nabbed
him."

"Oh!" exclaimed Angela, roused to understanding and appreciation. "For me,
that would be good--but for you----"

"For me, it's all right, too. And you don't come on in this act, lady."

"He'll tell," she said.

"I guess not. Not unless he's in a hurry to see what it's like down where
he goes next. If he so much as peeps while I'm in reach, I'll shake him
till his spine sticks out of his head like a telegraph-pole. Or if he
waits till he thinks I can't get at him, I'll scatter him over the
landscape with my gun, if I fire across a court-room. He sees I'm the kind
of man to keep my word." These threats were uttered in the same quiet
voice, and the speaker went on in a different tone, "I'll tell you what
you _can_ do, lady, if you don't mind. I hate to trouble you; but maybe
'twould be best for me not to try it with one hand, and him in the other.
If you'd slip into my room and push up the window nearest this way a few
inches higher, it would bear me out better when I say he came through
there."

Angela sat up again, and reached out for her white silk dressing-gown,
which lay across the foot of the bed. Wrapping it hastily round her, she
ran into her neighbour's room. As she flashed by him, where he stood
holding his captive, he thought more and more of his angel vision with the
moonlight hair, and it seemed a strange, almost miraculous coincidence
that he should behold it in real life, after describing his dreams to
Carmen Gaylor.

"The nearest window," Angela repeated, respecting the man's shrewdness and
presence of mind. The nearest window was the one to open, because the
thief had come crawling along in that direction on the cornice, and soon
it would be found out which room he had occupied, since he must be staying
in the hotel.

She pushed up the heavy sash, already raised some inches, and turning, saw
that the silent, sulky prisoner had been dragged in by her champion.

"Thank you, lady," said the latter, briskly. "Now, you just go back to
sleep and forget this--cut it out. The rest's my business."

"But--how can I let you have all this trouble on your shoulders?"
stammered Angela. "You