"That I will not tell you, because it will involve several poor devils I've hired in connection with this mad affair," said Anthony. "But if you will permit me, I will go for the young lady myself--stipulating only that I shall not be followed--and I will return her to your house before three o'clock this afternoon. After that, Dalton," said Anthony, drawing himself up, "I'm willing to take my medicine. I know that it's coming and I'm willing----" "You'll get it, never fear," snarled Mary's father. "But about Mary! Tell me the name of this town or----" "I shall tell you nothing whatever!" Anthony said firmly. "I shall tell you only that, under the conditions I have named, I will very gladly go to Jersey and get her." "You're sure she's there now?" Robert said hoarsely. "I am absolutely sure," said Anthony, "that she is now in New Jersey under guard." And now, with Dalton's murderous impulses stilled at least, with many things fairly well explained and new minutiæ coming into his head every second should this, that or the other question be asked, just as Anthony leaned back, two new quantities must needs enter. The first was Hobart Hitchin. The second was a strong breeze, which always came through the living-room when Wilkins left open the door and the window of his pantry. "Fry," said the crime-student, and if a snake owned a voice it would be as slithery and oily as the voice of Hobart Hitchin just then, "Fry, you say that Boller came in several hours after you came in last night? Didn't I see you both downstairs?" "Eh?" Anthony said. "And Fry," the reptilian voice added, "you haven't told us what was in the trunk you sent to Dalton's house, you know." Anthony straightened up again. Two seconds were passed, and still he had not the answer; three, and he was still silent; four, and he had not yet spoken. And the playful breeze saved him all the trouble of speaking. The latch of Anthony's bedroom door was not caught, and the breeze, striking it squarely, sent it open suddenly and cleanly as if jerked back by a wire! And leaning forward in her chair, even now listening intently, Mary Dalton was revealed! Anthony Fry did not move; this was because he could not. But with a single motion Theodore Dalton and Robert Vining, Johnson Boller and Johnson Boller's wife, were on their feet and staring at her. With a single plunge, Dalton and Vining went forward, and the former winning, he snatched Mary to him and wrapped the great arms around her, mouthing and mumbling and shouting all at once! Still Anthony did not move. He had not moved when, through the swirl that was before his eyes, Mary and her father came into the room. The girl had disengaged herself and she was rather pale--ah, and she was speaking to her father. "Dad," she said very quietly, "have I ever told you a lie?" "You'd be no daughter of mine if you had," Dalton said simply.