“Your lonely life has made you an easy prey heretofore to both schemer and fortune-hunter. You will have now Romaine to guard, and you need help. You can not go on and brave society’s natural curiosity. “And, no half explanations will do. When we have recovered your missing document, you must abandon forever all your operations in the Street, and go away to some safe European land, either Sweden, Switzerland or Germany, and, moreover, under a good guard. “If you stay here, you need a resolute man at your side, one who knows all your enemies, and one who can protect you. It is the revenge of Nature’s laws. You can not be father and mother both to your beautiful Cinderella—God bless her!” “And do you think that my friends are in any danger over the loss of the stolen document?” tremblingly said Elaine, fixing her eyes fondly upon his earnest face. “No,” said the journalist. “There has been time already to have struck at them. The paper is only held to coerce you—either to gain over your hand in marriage, or else, money will be the price of your safety. “If it’s Vreeland, it will be merely money. If it’s Garston, and far the more dangerous of the two—a man not foolish enough for criminal blackmailing threats—then he wants to control both you and Romaine. “Of course, he has no claim whatever on Romaine. He would only use her as the pivot to turn your heart toward him.” Elaine Willoughby’s eyes were filled with sudden tears. “If I only dared to tell you all!” she murmured. But as their hands met, Hugh Conyers brokenly said: “I am yours to the death; I can wait for your words, Elaine. Romaine is safe under a watchful guardian. Roper was an old Wells-Fargo shotgun messenger; a trusted Pinkerton man later, and as Romaine is Sara’s roommate, and as Roper never leaves them by day, you and I can wait here without fear till the demand is made on you. “And then, you may find the two men whom I fear turn up together. But the very moment they take any steps that indicate the possession of the document, the tables are turned. “They are then in our power. And Bagley may further trap Vreeland.” “He may have sold his secret to Senator Garston,” faltered Elaine Willoughby. “The only man on earth whom I fear.” “Fear nothing, however, while I am at your side, and Endicott is our Blucher in reserve. Our fears are always more real than our hopes,” said Conyers, as he relapsed into a brown study. He feared a self-betrayal. The winsome woman at his side was gazing at him with a new and tender light in her eyes. “How noble he is! How true!” she sighed; for Hugh Conyers’ friendship was a rock in the desert of her life.