"I thought they never would," was Wilkinson's answer. "These three days have seemed more like three years to me.... So you got it through, did you? Surety Company fix it up ...?" "I got the Court to reduce the bail to half a million; your daughter Leslie and the Surety Company did the rest." Leslie started. "I! Why I didn't know that I did anything?" Colonel Morehead smiled. "You assigned two-thirds of your own fortune--stocks and bonds--to the surety company to secure them. So if Peter V. skips his bail--runs away,"--he was leering at him now,--"you stand to lose, you see." "Runs away," repeated Leslie. The words were like music to her ears. "What a splendid idea! It would be the best way out of it, after all. You could take the _Marchioness_," she went on enthusiastically, "and steam to the ends of the earth!" "Haven't I told you, Colonel, that she was a hard-headed little proposition," said her father, with a good deal of pride. "Not a bad idea, the _Marchioness_. Now, if--if I were guilty, instead of being innocent...." Colonel Morehead grunted. "Do you think that your steam yacht the _Marchioness_ is any match for District Attorney Murgatroyd? He'd find you even in uncharted seas, and bring you back." "It's all O. K., Counsellor," called out Bill Steen, tapping on the door; "you can go now!" Steen unlocked the door of the dingy little room. And as Peter Wilkinson started to go, Steen intercepted him and held out his hand, hesitated a moment, and finally said: "It ain't often that we have a man of your standing, Mr. Wilkinson, in our hotel. Would you mind a-shakin' hands before you go?" Wilkinson shook hands with a will. "Here's hoping that we may never see you here again," said Steen, cordially. "You can be sure of that," answered Wilkinson, with just the ghost of a smile on his lips. At the entrance he stood an instant and looked up into the sky. "Free," he breathed, as to himself. Leslie clung to his arm, and pressed her hand against her face. They started down the steps, but Wilkinson drew back. "The crowds--the crowds--they'll mob me again!" he cried, his huge frame shaking like a leaf. Morehead caught him firmly by the arm. "Come, Peter, brace up, take a big grip on yourself!" were his reassuring words. "There's no mob, no one who knows you, anyhow. You don't look so different from a lot of other men." Wilkinson shook himself and clenched his hands. "I'm all right now," he declared, "I lost my nerve in there." After a long intake of breath, he added: "That's the last time they'll ever get me in there, the last time, mark my words, Morehead. There were times when I came near biting the bars. Think of me being locked up!" They had reached the corner of the street. He halted. "There was a chap in the cell next to mine," he went on, "who'd been sent up for five years. Think of it! He was waiting to be taken up the river any day--didn't seem to mind it, either. Five years in a place like that----"