"We're not talking of Isabel," Archie interrupted haughtily. "I'll trouble you to say all you have to say about Sally and Abijah." "Abijah!" squeaked the Governor, again overcome by mirth. For the first time Archie disliked the Governor. His unsympathetic attitude toward the elopement was intolerable. A round of abuse would have been more palatable than this ironic jesting. The Governor saw that he had gone too far and immediately shifted the key. "What you did, Archie," he resumed paternally, "what you did was to marry Sally, the incomparable, Sally the divine, to Pete Barney, the diamond thief. He took refuge with Walker a couple of weeks ago, and the old man extended him his usual generous hospitality. Barney had been well vouched for and had all the pass-words and countersigns of the great fraternity, but Walker mistrusted him. A week is the usual limit for a pilgrim's stay, and seeing how Sally and Barney were hitting it off the old man gave the chap a hint to move along. He didn't go, it seems, but hung round the neighborhood waiting for a chance to pull off the elopement in which you so kindly assisted even to the extent of bolting with Slippery Abe's car." "You mean--you mean I married the girl to a crook?" gasped Archie. "One of the smoothest in the game! And Sally knew he was a crook! I suppose it was the diamonds that fetched her. If you'd looked at his hands you would have noticed that he hadn't the paws of an honest Green Mountain farmer. Pick-pocket originally and marvelously deft; but precious stones are his true metier. The trifling little necklace he had on his person when he struck Walker's is worth a cool hundred thousand. He'll have to break it up and sell 'em in the usual way and it will take time." Archie sank upon the bed, twisting his hands together. He had done a horrible thing, hardly second to murder, and his penitence weighed heavily upon him. "You are not chaffing me! It doesn't seem possible that the girl would have deceived me!"