"He," panted the boy, "he gave himself up for me. They thought it was I, and he went to jail for me." "It was a mistake on their part," answered Donaldson. "They did n't know." "And so you shouldered it," she whispered. "I knew it would come out all right," he faltered. "A reporter rang me up just now," ran on Arsdale. "He told me the whole thing. The papers are full of it. They--they say you 're great, Donaldson, but they don't know _how_ great!" "If you would n't talk about it," pleaded Donaldson. "Talk about it? I want to scream it! I want to get out and stand in Park Row and yell it. I want every living man and woman in the world to know about it!" "It's all over--it's done with!" "No," answered Arsdale, "it's just begun. I feel weak in the knees. I must go--I must be alone a minute and think this over." He staggered from the room and Donaldson turning to the girl, said gently, "Go to Marie now. She will need you." "You," she exclaimed below her breath, "you are wonderful!" He turned away his head and she left him there alone. CHAPTER XXIV _The Greater Master_ In the fifteen minutes that Donaldson waited in the library, he fought out with himself the question as to whether he had the strength to remain here in the house on this the day before the end. In his decision he took into account his duty towards the boy, the possible danger to the girl, and his own growing passion. There was but one answer: he owed it to them all to pull free while there was yet time. It would be foolhardy to risk here a full day and an evening. He felt the approaching crisis more than he had at any time during the week. At times he became panic-stricken at his powerlessness to check for even one brief pendulum-swing this steady tread of time. Time was such an intangible thing, and yet what a Juggernaut! There was nothing of it which he could get hold of to wrestle, and yet it was more powerful than Samson to throw him in the end. Sly, subtle, bodiless, soulless, impersonal; expressed in the big clock above the city, and in milady's dainty watch rising and falling upon her breast; sweeping away cities and nursing to life violets; tearing down and building up; killing and begetting; bringing laughter and tears, it is consistent in one thing alone,--that it never ceases. There is but one word big enough to express it, and that is God. Without beginning, without end, and never ceasing. At times he grew breathless, so individualized did every second become, so fraught with haste. Where was he being dragged, and in the end would the seconds rest? No, they would go on just the same, and he might hear them even in his grave.