"Wilkins," he said. "Back to report that the girl's safe at home--whatever good that may do now. Is that you, Wilkins?" "That's--that's me, sir!" Wilkins puffed. And the door closed and in the foyer bump--bump--bump indicated that Wilkins was carrying something, a trunk one might almost have thought from the sound. Rather red, gleaming perspiration that had not all come from exertion, Wilkins appeared, moved into the room, gazed feelingly at his master, was about to speak and then caught the sound of voices from David's room. "The--the parties couldn't attend to the trunk to-day!" said Wilkins. "_She_--isn't in there?" Anthony whispered. "I have no reason to think otherwise, sir," said the faithful one. "You didn't leave her?" "There was no one to leave her with, sir, and I was ordered out with the trunk," Wilkins said, smiling wanly. "There wasn't nowhere to come but here, sir, with the police after me." From down the corridor issued-- "Yes! I'm--Heaven help me--I'm convinced!" "I'll be taking her into your room, sir," Wilkins said hastily. "She must be needing a breath of air by this time, poor young lady!" Another nightmare figure, he lumbered across the living-room and into Anthony's chamber; and regardless of possible consequences Anthony followed and snatched open the trunk. Mary had not expired. Her face was decidedly red and her eyes rather bewildered, but she struggled out with Anthony's assistance, breathed deeply several times, glanced at her hair in the mirror and then, being a thoroughly good sport, Mary even managed a small, wretched laugh. "Back again!" she said simply. "They'd discharged Felice." "Was there--nobody else?" Anthony asked. "Dorothy, our little parlor maid, would have done, I suppose, but Wilkins didn't know about her," said the girl, facing him. "It's pretty awful, isn't it?" Even now she had not lost her nerve! The chivalrous something in Anthony welled up more strongly than ever; the precise, rather old-maidish quality of his expression vanished altogether--and for the very first time Mary almost liked him. "It's very awful, indeed," he said quickly. "More awful than you imagine, but--we'll try to believe that all is not lost even now. One way or another, I'll get you out of it, Miss Mary, if I have to lie my soul into perdition. I don't know how at the moment, but the way will indicate itself; I decline to believe anything else! You'll have to stay here and keep your ears wide open and take your cue from whatever I'm saying. I hope----" "Psst!" said Johnson Boller. Anthony left the room with a motion that was more twitch than anything else, and he left it none too soon. The shock, or the first of it, was over; Robert Vining was coming back to them, not like a nice young man, but rather like a Kansas cyclone! Three thuds in the corridor, and he appeared before them.