"The name, the name! I can not recollect the name! The beard is gone, but that does not matter,"--excitedly. Warburton breathed easier. While he did not want the girl to know who he was just then, he was glad that Karloffs memory had taken his thought away from the grate and its valuable but rapidly disappearing fuel. "Father! Father, what is it?" cried the girl, her voice keyed to agony. "Father!" The two men turned about. Annesley had fainted in his chair. Both Warburton and Karloff mechanically started forward to offer aid, but she repelled their approach. "Do not come near me; you have done enough. Father, dear!" She slapped the colonel's wrists and unloosed his collar. The antagonists, forgetting their own battle, stood silently watching hers. Warburton's mind was first to clear, and without a moment's hesitation he darted from the room and immediately returned with a glass of water. He held it out to the girl. Their glances clashed; a thousand mute, angry questions in her eyes, a thousand mute, humble answers in his. She accepted the glass, and her hand trembled as she dipped her fingers into the cool depths and flecked the drops into the unconscious man's face. Meanwhile Karloff stood with folded arms, staring melancholically into the grate, where his dreams had disappeared in smoke. By and by the colonel sighed and opened his eyes. For a time he did not know where he was, and his gaze wandered mistily from face to face. Then recollection came back to him, recollection bristling with thorns. He struggled to his feet and faced Warburton. The girl put her arms around him to steady him, but he gently disengaged himself. "Are you from the secret service, sir? If so, I am ready to accompany you wherever you say. I, who have left my blood on many a battleground, was about to commit a treasonable act. Allow me first to straighten up my affairs, then you may do with me as you please. I am guilty of a crime; I have the courage to pay the penalty." His calm was extraordinary, and even Karloff looked at him with a sparkle of admiration. As a plummet plunges into the sea, so the girl's look plunged into Warburton's soul; and had he been an officer of the law, he knew that he would have utterly disregarded his duty. "I am not a secret service man, sir," he replied unevenly. "If I were,"--pointing to the grate, "your plans would not have fed the fire." "Who are you, then, and what do you in my house in this guise?"--proudly. "I am your head stable-man--for the present. It was all by chance. I came into this room yesterday to get a book on veterinary surgery. I accidentally saw a plan. I have been a soldier. I knew that such a thing had no rightful place in this house.... I was coming across the lawn, when I looked into the window. ... It is not for me to judge you, sir. My duty lay in destroying those plans before they harmed any one."