presence in the flat buildings that night. It was a serious thing to do, and somehow I fancy that the end is not yet."
"Why did you do it?" the Colonel asked. "You did not know who she was. It could not have been that."
"Why did I do it?" Wrayson repeated. "I can't tell you. I only know that I should do it again and again if the need came. If I told you exactly how I felt, it would sound like rot. But I'm going to ask you that question."
"Well?"
The Colonel's grey eyebrows were drawn together. His eyes were keen and bright. So he might have looked in time of stress; but he was not in the least like the genial idol of the Sheridan billiard-room.
"If I came to you to-morrow," Wrayson said, "and told you that I had met at last the woman whom I wished to make my wife, and that woman was your daughter, what should you say?"
"I should be glad," the Colonel answered simply.
"You and she are, for some unhappy reason, not on speaking terms. That——"
"Good God!" the Colonel interrupted, "whom do you mean? Whom are you talking about?"
"About your daughter—whom I shielded—the companion of the Baroness de Sturm. Your daughter Louise."
The Colonel raised his trembling fingers to his forehead. His voice quivered ominously.
"Of course! Of course! God help me, I thought you meant Edith! I never thought of Louise. And Edith has spoken of you lately."
