"Wait here, Howard. If several men come rushing out, or I don't appear within ten minutes, fire your gun a couple of times for the police. I don't want them if we can manage without. They'd only bungle." "All right, Mr. Jones," said the chauffeur. He had, in the past quarter of an hour, acquired a deep and lasting respect for the butler chap. He was a regular fellow, for all his brass buttons. As Jones reached the curb, Florence came forth as if on invisible wings. Jones caught her by the arm. She flung him aside with a strength he had not dreamed existed in her slim body. "Florence, I am Jones!" She stopped, recognized him, and without a word ran across the street to the automobile and climbed into the tonneau. Jones followed immediately. "Home!" The car shot up the dimly lighted street, shone palely for a second under the corner lamp, and vanished. "Ah, child, child!" groaned the man at her side, all the tenseness gone from his body. He was Jones again. Still she did not speak, but stared ahead with unseeing eyes. No further reproach fell from the butler's lips. It was enough that God had guided him to her at the appointed moment. He felt assured that never again would she be drawn into any trap. Poor child! What had they said to her, done to her? How, in God's name, had she escaped from them who never let anybody escape? Presently she would become normal, and then she would tell him. "I found the lying note. You dropped it." "Horrible, horrible!" she said almost inaudibly. "What did they do to you?" "He said he was my father.... He put his arms around me.... And I knew!" "Knew what?" "That he lied. I can't explain." "Don't try!" Suddenly she laid her head against the butler's shoulder and cried. It was terrible to hear youth weep in this fashion. Jones put his arm about her and tried to console her. "Horrible!" she murmured between the violent hiccoughs. "I was wrong, wrong! Forgive me!" Unconsciously the arm sustaining her drew her closer. "Never mind," he consoled. "Tell no one what has happened. Go about as usual. Don't let even Susan know. Whatever your poor father did was for your sake. He wanted you to be happy, without a care in the world." "I promise." And gradually the sobs ceased. "But I feel so old, Jones, so very old. I threw over the lamp. I threw a chair through the window. They thought that it was I who had jumped out. That gave me the necessary time. I don't understand how I did it. I wasn't frightened at all till I gained the street." They found Susan still seated in the chair, the automatic in her lap. She had not moved in all this time! Braine paced the apartment of the Countess Perigoff. From the living room to the boudoir and back, fully twenty times. From the divan Olga watched him nervously. He was like a tiger, fresh in captivity. All at once he paused in front of her. "Do you realize what that mere chit did?" "I do."