the most zealous officer of the peace. He went swiftly and secretly, avoiding all lighted ways.
Not till then did conscience stir and remind him of his slighted promise to call up Cecelia Brooke.
No time now for that; the errand that engaged him was of a nature to brook no more procrastination. The girl must wait. He was sorry if, as she had protested, solicitude for his welfare must interfere with her night's rest. But what must be, must: until he saw the end of this adventure he could be influenced by no minor consideration whatsoever.
Not that he seriously believed Cecelia's sleep would be uneasy because of him. That was too much.
His temper was grim and skeptical. The resentment roused by the trap that had so nearly laid him by the heels, together with the subsequent effort to assassinate him out of hand, had settled into a phase of smouldering fury whose heat consumed like misty vapours every lesser emotion, every humane consideration.
Some by-thought recalling the Weringrode's innuendo that he was in love without his knowledge, moved him to laugh outright if strangely, an unpleasant laugh that held as much of pain as of derision.
What room in that dark heart of his for love? … the heart of a thief and a potential assassin, the heart of the Lone Wolf! …
How was he to know he had hardly left his lodgings before their hush was interrupted by the grumble of the house telephone?
Intermittently for upward of three minutes that sound persisted. When at length it discontinued the quiet of
