The Colonel uncrossed his legs and sat on the edge of the table, facing them. "How do you look without a beard?" he asked. Leslie laughed aloud in sheer delight. The problem seemed to be solving itself, but how or in what way she could not see. "Blamed if I know," answered Wilkinson. "I don't even remember how I used to look without a beard, and as for photographs, well, in former days those luxuries were not for me, you know." Colonel Morehead stuck his hands into his armpits and rested his chin upon his shirt front. Presently he went on: "Peter, you know this is Murgatroyd's pet case. It's his first in his series of raids upon the iniquitous rich. He means to see to it that you serve ten years--less good behaviour. From the time you put up your million-dollar bail bond he has had you watched. Of course his task is a tremendous one. You and I know that time and time again we have eluded the vigilance of his men; and we know that we can do it again for a time; but that doesn't alter the situation. If you should disappear, every hotel, every train, every steamship would be thronged with plainclothes men. You can't get out of the United States, and you can't get out of the State, unless--you can't, in fact, elude Murgatroyd for any time at all, unless----" Again he stopped, and again Leslie and her father chimed in insistently: "Unless----" "Unless you follow my directions." "What are they?" quickly asked the others. "You've got to leave your beard and your name and all your worldly goods----" went on the Colonel, but he checked himself in time. "My worldly possessions being minus anyway," sighed Wilkinson, helping the Colonel out. "You've got to leave, even Mrs. Peter V.," smiled Morehead. "Heaven forbid!" exclaimed Wilkinson with mock solemnity; then he added: "I can leave the lady with eminent complacency." "And also," went on Morehead, mercilessly, "you must leave your daughter." There was a sharp cry from Leslie, but Wilkinson gave no sign. He merely sniffed hopefully, for he smelled freedom in all this. "Go on!" he commanded, ignoring the quivering palm that Leslie laid upon his hand. "You've got to leave them all and never come back to them," continued the Colonel; and bending closer and lowering his voice to a whisper, he added: "Leave everything that you've got in the world, you understand?" Wilkinson muttered an oath under his breath, for next to liberty his wealth was dear to him. In fact, he now arranged in his mind the relative importance of things: first, liberty--he must have that at any cost; second, the millions that he had stowed away; third, his daughter Leslie. "Why have I got to leave them all?" he demanded, "and why never come back at all?"