"Good-by, sir. I shall never forget your kindness, and your bravery--nor will any of us," she added, glancing from Carver to Villard, and back to Carver again. And then, with a little sigh, she fell back between Villard and Sawyer and closed her eyes. Within a few minutes she was sound asleep. The adventure had taxed her beyond her strength. That night Villard shivered in his sleep, but not from cold. There was a certain dread of misfortune--he knew not what--that filled his mind. Publicity, from a gossip standpoint, was his pet aversion. The thought of its blight upon his name, and the haunting fear of being pointed out as the man whose sweetheart had been kidnapped by one of his partners, simply brought out a cold sweat over his body. At midnight he could stand it no longer, whereupon he turned on his reading lamp and reached for the bedside telephone--then called up the hotel where Updyke lived, and was connected with his room. The big fellow was just retiring when he answered the call. "I expected to hear from you earlier in the evening," said he by way of greeting. "Hot old day, eh?" "A great day, as it turned out to be--and how I am ever going to get even with you I don't know!" said Villard with much feeling. "Come off of that, or I'll send you a bill for services the first of the month," shouted Updyke. "Well, you'd better, or I'll send you something you won't like--an insult of some sort about people who have big hearts and no wits for making money to 'feed the old gray mare' with." "Don't worry--you're not out of the woods yet--but I won't check in on that until I get through with 'so and so' and a few of his crooked friends. I'm going out to see you to-morrow night and talk things over. I'll say that it's going to be some trick to keep this thing out of the papers," said Updyke, his voice carrying conviction. "It's a thousand dollar scoop if 'so and so' wants the money bad enough. I think he is 'all in' so far as ready cash is concerned. He didn't pull this trick just for the--you know what I mean." "Yes--go on!" "No, we will talk it out, with less danger. I'll run down later. I had one terrible time in third-degree stuff and have put him away for the night. Me for the mattress and a pillow, for awhile. Get some sleep, yourself!" "All right--and God bless you!" replied Drury Villard, as he shut off the light and settled down in bed. But there is no such thing as sleep for a wide-awake man. A very small incident of the day kept creeping into his thoughts--young Carver! Had not his Winifred kissed her dainty hand as she held it out to him? Was it just a girlish impulse?--or was it the blood of youth responding to the call? Once planted, this tiny seed of uncertainty began to grow. The clock struck one--brooding time, for middle-aged men who roll and toss, and think dark things in the black hours of the night.