"You treacherous hound," said Craig pleasantly. "Where did you get the nerve to put on airs with me? What would you have done to her in the same circumstances? Why, you'd have sneaked and lied out of it. And you dare to scorn me because I've been frank and direct! Come! I'll give you another chance. Will you take me back to town in your machine?" A pause, Craig's fierce gaze upon Grant, Grant's upon the ground. Then Grant mumbled surlily: "Come on." When they were passing the front windows of the house Craig assumed that Margaret was hiding somewhere there, peering out at them. But he was wrong. She was in her room, was face down upon her bed, sobbing as if her first illusion had fallen, had dashed to pieces, crushing her heart under it. CHAPTER XVII A NIGHT MARCH Arkwright saw no one but his valet-masseur for several days; on the left side of his throat the marks of Craig's fingers showed even above the tallest of his extremely tall collars. From the newspapers he gathered that Margaret had gone to New York on a shopping trip--had gone for a stay of two or three weeks. When the adventure in the garden was more than a week into the past, as he was coming home from a dinner toward midnight he jumped from his electric brougham into Craig's arms. "At last!" exclaimed Josh, leading the way up the Arkwright steps and ringing the bell. Grant muttered a curse under his breath. When the man had opened the door, "Come in," continued Josh loudly and cheerily, leading the way into the house. "You'd think it was his house, by gad!" muttered Grant. "I've been walking up and down before the entrance for an hour. The butler asked me in, but I hate walls and roof. The open for me--the wide, wide open!" "Not so loud," growled Arkwright. "The family's in bed. Wait till we get to my part of the house." When they were there, with doors closed and the lights on, Craig exhaled his breath as noisily as a blown swimmer. "What a day! What a day!" he half-shouted, dropping on the divan and thrusting his feet into the rich and rather light upholstery of a near-by chair. Grant eyed the feet gloomily. He was proud of his furniture and as careful of it as any old maid. "Go ahead, change your clothes," cried Josh. "I told your motorman not to go away." "What do you mean?" Arkwright demanded, his temper boiling at the rim of the pot. "I told him before you got out. You see, we're going to New York to-night--or rather this morning. Train starts at one o'clock. I met old Roebuck at the White House to-night--found he was going by special train--asked him to take us." "Not I," said Arkwright. "No New York for me. I'm busy to-morrow. Besides, I don't want to go." "Of course you don't," laughed Craig, and Arkwright now noted that he was in the kind of dizzy spirits that most men can get only by drinking a very great deal indeed. "Of course you don't. No more do I. But I've got to go--and so have you." "What for?" "To help me get married."