There were but two contingencies. If Craig recovered sufficient consciousness to speak the name that had fainted on his lips when they two had been face to face in that room of hurried surgery--then his incognito would fall and fate must have its way. If Craig died without recovering consciousness--this, provided his own identity was not discovered, was the one way out for Echo. For him it meant, probably, the last risk. He had now to meet no mere assumption of guilt, but an accusation, direct and unqualified, made under oath, in what might well be the hour of death. He could not offer in rebuttal evidence of character, reputation and standing. He was deliberately refusing to call his only witness to the fact. Yet he did not waver. The Harry Sevier who under the stress of impulse had acted so swiftly to save the woman he loved, elected the same choice now. He would do it. Whatever the risk, whatever the ultimate cost to him, he would do it! CHAPTER XXIII THE BROKEN PICTURE "Hyuh yo' is, honey, smack-dab on time!" called 'Lige's cheery voice, as he took Echo's bag. "Yo' fo'got ter say which train yo' comin' back on yistiddy, so ah ben waitin' wid dee cya'age fo dee las' fo'. Ah was figuratin' on yo' gittin' hyuh fo' dinnah, sho'." As they bowled along toward home Echo wondered if she could really be the same girl who had driven away the day before along those self-same streets! The strenuous events through which she had passed seemed the terrifying creation of a dream, a nightmarish panorama of the sick imagination, so wild and incredible all appeared in the serene light of this day: The painful scene in Craig's library that had ended in swift tragedy, with the apparition between the portières of that baleful face--with its narrow eyes and upthrust of nondescript hair it had stamped itself ineffacably upon her memory!--the deafening shot and the after confusion--those breathless moments when she had run along the wet path, with a sense of flashing lights and alarm behind her--her safe emergence into the demure street, where she dared not run, compelling herself to walk albeit ready to faint with fear at sight of a patrolling policeman--the ghastly delay in the stuffy waiting-room of the station where she had checked her bag on arrival--the suffocating relief when at last the express pulled out, bearing her away unchallenged.