recounted the steps of the recent event with the monotone of one who chants a mechanically memorized tale. She understood at last.

"But what did he do when you went to his room in the hotel?"

"Just what I expected—in fact, what I prayed for! As the door opened he fired his revolver—and I carry the witness inside this crimson handkerchief. I had my own weapon in my coat pocket ... it's a trick I learned in Central American revolutions. I fired from my waist, burned a hole in my overcoat—and burned a hole in the heart of that murderous hound."

Suddenly he sprang to his feet and walked to the window, just as he had done back in Meadow Green so short a time before.

"Dad, dear old dad! I know you're satisfied. I let him take the first chance, and it was his last."

He was silent. The girl twisted the dressing-gown in her slender, nervous fingers. She waited for him to speak. He turned about, and dropped his hands, palm outward, as he quietly ended it all with the question: "Now, can you understand why the law would not give me justice?"

"Is he dead—are you sure?"

"I didn't wait—I came ... to ... visit you. Now are you going to drive me out?... You don't know what it is to fight single-handed against fearful odds. That's how I planned to spend my summer. To fight the endless fight alone...."

She leaned forward eagerly as she answered: "Oh, yes, I do! I know what it means.... I, too, have been fighting against fearful odds!"

Jarvis looked at her sharply.

"There is no man to fight for you?"

"No man who dares."

"Oh, God! If there had only been a woman left for me to fight for!... But with my mother gone it was simply a hopeless, desperate determination to square the score at any cost, and then cry 'Quits!' and care nothing."

She drew back, studying the outline of his agile body, as he stood silhouetted against the moonlight.

"And are you alone?"

"Alone."

"And if you're caught," there was a curious eagerness in her low voice, "it means payment with your life?"

"Yes!"

"Suppose that I decided to help you—to do more than I have done?"

Jarvis discarded his fatalism, as he caught at this loophole.

"What do you mean?"

"You have no fear of death? You are not afraid of ghosts?"

"Ghosts? Don't joke with me. I am an American."

"Yes—ghosts—they are not confined to America, or China, or Africa. I mean Spanish ghosts."

Jarvis' laugh was almost bitter, as he responded with a tense earnestness:

"After to-night I am not afraid of the living or the dead. What are you thinking about?"

After a hesitation, poignant in its baffling anxiety, she rose and walked toward him, absolutely forgetful of their curious meeting and their lack of a common ground of interest.

"If you escape from here, it will be because I helped you. We might say, I saved your life,—if what you tell me is true and if I do it from a selfish motive entirely, I am justified. I have work for you ... hard, dangerous work, and as I am frank, it may mean your life in the end. It's a chance, and you have nothing to lose."

"And if I agree?"

"You will begin by taking the ancient feudal oath of my country."

"Isn't my word enough? I'm a Kentuckian, you know."

"But I insist."

Jarvis smiled indulgently.

"Very well—I'll swear the blackest oath you can utter." His eyes twinkled. "Let's hear it all now."

The girl drew back her shoulders haughtily. It was apparent that she took this curious idea more seriously than the prelude would suggest.

"What is your name?"

"Jarvis."

"All of it?"

"Warren Jarvis."

She raised her hands, to the Kentuckian's surprise.

"Kneel then, Warren of Jarvis!... No, not that way,—on one knee only!"

"I beg your pardon." Jarvis began to feel ridiculous, in spite of himself. But there were reasons for humoring this curious beauty. The footsteps were still audible in the hall.

"Now repeat this oath: I, Warren of Jarvis" (he followed word for word), "Señor of all the domains, fiefs, keeps, and marches of Warren of Kentucky..."

"Whew!" and he stifled a laugh as he echoed the words.

The girl continued: "Do convey to Maria Theresa, of Aragon, all my worldly titles and possessions..."

"Sounds like I were marrying her—I beg your pardon. 'Do convey to Maria Theresa, of Aragon, all my worldly titles and possessions!'"

The shade of a smile played over his features.

The girl caught his hand in hers, placed her left in both of his, and then continued: "And receive them back as vassal and retainer and to faithfully fight in my lady's cause, according to the feudal laws of Castile and Aragon!"

—"and to faithfully fight in my lady's cause"

As he finished the repetition, she added: "Arise, vassal!"

With the spirit of the ceremony, he jestingly caught her hand and kissed it, as he arose. She drew back sharply.

"That is part of the ceremony, but I meant to omit it."

Warren Jarvis laughed provokingly.

"That seemed to me the only sensible part of it—again I beg your pardon. But who on earth is this Maria Theresa of Aragon person whose hired man I have become?"

The girl drew herself up with a hauteur which could never have been imitated upon the stage. Her dark eyes glinted coldly as she replied: "I—I am her Serene Highness—Maria Theresa—Princess of Aragon!"

Jarvis looked at her, waiting for the cue to the joke. She was serious. It was all so unreal, so ridiculous—and yet back there on the floor of the room down the corridor lay Jim Marcum. This mad, sad, heart-rending, adventure must have driven him to insanity. He rubbed his brow, looked out of the window, heard the unromantic honk-honk of a piratical night-owl taxicab on the street so far below. He steadied his mental equilibrium, and looked again at the self-possessed young woman, whose regal manner was as convincing as all the other details were unconvincing. On the table lay a fortune in jewels and rings and a necklace. He had not noticed them before. He remembered the Spanish conversation which he had heard through the bathroom door. He realized from the size and elegance of the rooms that this must indeed be a regal suite in the great hotel.

And the girl's steady look never wavered.

American humor, in the presence of royalty, came to his aid in this staggering blow to his credence.

"Good-night! You a Princess ... and I've been ordering you around with a gun! Great Scott ... what next?"

V

EXIT JARVIS, LAUGHING

The Princess turned toward the door, for a step could be heard in the corridor.

"Before that official returns we must have a plan. I thought it out while you were behind the door. But, perhaps, it will be too hard a task for you."

"I'll try it. Anything to get out of here! And I would like to know what it is you want me to do for you—what about the ghost?"

"I will tell you in good time. Just now for your escape. It is getting late, and the hours are speeding past. You are in a hopeless trap here. Now, my trunk..."

"What about it?"

"I am sending it on board the Mauretania at six o'clock, and no one could possibly suspect."

Jarvis turned to study this curious vehicle of transportation. It was a strong, well-built piece of baggage, indeed; but to be cooped up in it, at the mercy of baggageman and truckman, hoisters and stewards—the thought was staggering.

"You're joking," he began, but she resolutely shook her wealth of hair.

"It's the only chance, and a daring one at that. I am jeopardizing my own