Keith’s face paled and his nostrils dilated for a moment.  He leant slightly forward and spoke slowly, his burning eyes fastened on Wickersham’s face.

“Your statement would be equally infamous whether it were true or false.  You know that it is a lie, and you know that I know it is a lie.  I will let that suffice.  I have nothing further to say to you.”  He tapped on the edge of the glass again, and Dennison walked in.  “Dennison,” he said, “Mr. Wickersham has agreed to my plans.  He will go aboard the Buenos Ayres boat to-night.  You will go with him to the office I spoke of, where he will acknowledge these papers; then you will accompany him to his home and get whatever clothes he may require, and you will not lose sight of him until you come off with the pilot.”

Dennison bowed without a word; but his eyes snapped.

“If he makes any attempt to evade, or gives you any cause to think he is trying to evade, his agreement, you have your instructions.”

Dennison bowed again, silently.

“I now leave you.”  Keith rose and inclined his head slightly toward Wickersham.

As he turned, Wickersham shot at him a Parthian arrow: 

“I hope you understand, Mr. Keith, that the obligations I have signed are not the only obligations I recognize.  I owe you a personal debt, and I mean to live to pay it.  I shall pay it, somehow.”

Keith turned and looked at him steadily.

“I understand perfectly.  It is the only kind of debt, as far as I know, that you recognize.  Your statement has added nothing to what I knew.  It matters little what you do to me.  I have, at least, saved two friends from you.”

He walked out of the room and closed the door behind him.

As Wickersham pulled on his gloves, he glanced at Dave Dennison.  But what he saw in his face deterred him from speaking.  His eyes were like coals of fire.

“I am waiting,” he said.  “Hurry.”

Wickersham walked out in silence.

* * * * *

The following afternoon, when Dave Dennison reported that he had left his charge on board the outgoing steamer, bound for a far South American port, Keith felt as if the atmosphere had in some sort cleared.

A few days later Phrony’s worn spirit found rest.  Keith, as he had already arranged, telegraphed Dr. Balsam of her death, and the Doctor went over and told Squire Rawson, at the same time, that she had been found and lost.

The next day Keith and Dave Dennison took back to the South all that remained of the poor creature who had left there a few years before in such high hopes.

One lady, closely veiled, attended the little service that old Dr. Templeton conducted in the chapel of the hospital where Phrony had passed away, before the body was taken South.  Alice Lancaster had been faithful to the end in looking after her.

Phrony was buried in the Rawson lot in the little burying-ground at Ridgely, not far from the spot where lay the body of General Huntington.  As Keith passed this grave he saw that flowers had been laid on it recently, but they had withered.