"Very well," he said. "What you say gives me a decent chance for life." He drew a quick breath of relief. "I'm mighty glad," he said; "I have--have seen men die. It isn't--an--agreeable sight. I think we'd better go." "In a moment." She took her satchel and went into another room with it, closing the intervening door. She was gone only a few seconds. When she returned she had locked the satchel; he closed and strapped her suit-case and took it in his hand. Together they descended the stairway and started through the lower hall. And what occurred there happened like lightning. For, as he passed the door of the darkened living room, a man jumped out behind him and threw one arm around his throat, and another man stepped in front of him and snapped a pair of handcuffs on his wrists. It was not even a struggle; Guild was being held too tightly. The girl shrank back against the wall, flattening herself against it, staring dumbly at the proceeding as though stunned. She did not even cry out when the man who had handcuffed Guild turned on her and caught her by the elbow. "Come along quietly, miss," he began, when suddenly his voice died out in a groan and he crumpled up on the floor as Bush, the chauffeur, sprang from the passage-way behind him and struck him with something short and heavy. The man who had thrown his arm around Guild's throat from behind, flung his handcuffed victim aside and whipped out a revolver, but the chauffeur knocked it out of his fist and hit him in the face two heavy, merciless blows, hurling him senseless across the stairs. And all the while the blond young chauffeur was smiling his fixed and murderous smile. And he was like a tiger now in every movement as he knelt, rummaged in the fallen men's pockets, found the key to the handcuffs, leaned over and unlocked them as Guild held out his manacled hands. [Illustration: "The chauffeur hit him ... two heavy, merciless blows, hurling him senseless across the stairs"] "Please watch them, sir," he said cheerfully. "I must find a curtain or something----" He ran into the living-room, ripped off a long blue curtain, tore it into strips with his powerful blond hands, grinning cheerfully all the while. "Best to tie them up, sir--this way--allow me, sir--this is the better way--the surer----" Guild, working hard, he scarcely knew why, felt a touch on his arm. "Are they dead?" whispered Karen Girard unsteadily. "No--stunned." "Are they robbers?" The blond chauffeur looked up, laughed, then rolled a strip of cloth into a ball for a gag. "I'm not entirely sure what they are," said Guild. "I'll tell you what I think when we're in the car." The chauffeur completed his business, looked over the results of his efforts critically, rose to his feet, still smiling. "Now, sir, if you please--and madam--" And he possessed himself of the luggage.