oil-stove in working order. In a surprisingly short time, therefore, he was back in the dining-room with a laden tray.

"Do you like your eggs soft-boiled, medium, or hard?" he inquired, treating an extraordinary episode with a nonchalance which betokened either a temperament wholly devoid of emotion or a career crowded with uncommon experiences.

"Need I eat eggs at all?" said the girl. "I'm sure, Mrs. Jackson——"

"Do you want to rouse the village?"

"No; anything but that."

"Then I must point out that the one cottage in Elmdale whose inmates will be deaf and dumb at this moment is Mrs. Jackson's. Both mother and daughter are quaking because of the possible consequences of an attempt to enter this house at an hour which no person could choose for a legitimate purpose. Eat and drink, therefore. We'll deal with the Jacksons subsequently. No, don't begin by a long draught of milk. It is tempting, but harmful if taken in that way. Try some bread and butter. Now, two eggs. Oh, dash it! I've forgotten an egg-spoon, and I don't know where such things are kept. I'll go and hunt for them."

"Don't trouble. Lend me that electric lamp—how useful it is!—and I'll bring one in a minute."

By this time Armathwaite had seen that his captive was a remarkably pretty girl. Male attire supplies the severest test of feminine beauty, since form and feature are deprived of adventitious aids; but a small, oval face, two pouting lips, a finely-modeled nose, brilliant brown eyes, swept by long curved lashes, and a smooth forehead, rising above arched and well-marked eyebrows, needed no art of milliner or dressmaker to enhance their charms. She was fairly tall, too—though dwarfed by Armathwaite's six feet and an inch of height in his slippered feet—and admirably proportioned, if slender and lithe. Evidently, she thought he had not penetrated her disguise, and was momentarily becoming more self-possessed. Again, she had some explanation of her presence in the house which could not fail of acceptance, and did not scruple, therefore, to display a close acquaintance with its arrangements denied to one who admittedly had taken up his abode there only that day.

The man listened to her quick, confident steps going to the kitchen, heard the rattle of a drawer in an antique dresser which stood there, and, with an emphatic gesture, seemed to appeal to the gods ere he bent over the stove to see if the water was yet a-boil.

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