Mr.

"Benjamin
rogue with her own hands. "We shall see," he said, roughly. "Look at them; they
are respectable in cut and they are clean." He drew the garments from the box,
piece by piece, and held them before her flaming face. ''I'm going out to take a
look about the valley. You are quite safe here. No one knows where you are, and
the robbers have been dead for twenty years. One of them still has his skeleton in
the room just off this one, but he is a harmless old fellow. In an hour I will return,
and we will eat. It is now three o'clock, and the sun will soon be rising. To-night we
venture forth as brothers, remember." He pulled his cap down over his eyes,
buttoned his coat about his throat, changed a revolver from one pocket to
another, and deliberately stalked across the room to the narrow door. An instant
later she heard the key rasp in the lock and she was alone "Oh, heaven, if Philip
Quentin could see me now! If he could but hear my sobs and see my tears! How
he would rejoice, how he would laugh, how he would pity me. This is your triumph,
Philip Quentin, but you are not here to claim the wretched victory. Fool! Fool!
Fool!" She had thrown herself faces downward on the patch of carpet and was
writhing in the agony of fear and regret. Suddenly there came to her ears the
distant report of a firearm, the rush of feet and then something heavy crashed
against the little door. She was on her feet in an instant, cowering in the far
corner of the room, her face among the cobwebs. Panic seized her, and she
screamed aloud in her terror. Outside the door there were sounds of a savage
struggle, but they rapidly became indistinct, and finally passed beyond hearing
altogether. She ran to the door and pounded on it with hands that knew not the
bruises they were acquiring, and she moaned n the fear that the rescuers, for
such they surely must be, were leaving her behind. "Phil! Phil!" she cried again
and again. But there suddenly came to her a terrifying thought, and she fell back,
cold and voiceless. Ugo! What if he had at last run the treacherous Courant to
earth? What if the rescuer were he? She slunk away from the door, the
dampness of dread sending a chill to her heart. And when again the rush of
footsteps brought a heavy body against the door, she had not the voce to cry
out, so sure was she that Ugo Ravorelli was coming to her in that dismal hole.
Then the door gave way, and Philip Quentin came plunging into the room, hatless,