“Read it, Mr. Trevor,” said Mrs. Cooke.

Mr. Trevor, in a somewhat unsteady voice, read the headlines and began the column, and they followed breathless with astonishment and agitation.  Once or twice the senator paused to frown upon the Celebrity with a terrible sternness, thus directing all other eyes to him.  His demeanor was a study in itself.  It may be surmised, from what I have said of him, that there was a strain of the actor in his composition; and I am prepared to make an affidavit that, secure in the knowledge that he had witnesses present to attest his identity, he hugely enjoyed the sensation he was creating.  That he looked forward with a profound pleasure to the stir which the disclosure that he was the author of The Sybarites would make.  His face wore a beatific smile.

As Mr. Trevor continued, his voice became firmer and his manner more majestic.  It was a task distinctly to his taste, and one might have thought he was reading the sentence of a Hastings.  I was standing next to his daughter.  The look of astonishment, perhaps of horror, which I had seen on her face when her father first began to read had now faded into something akin to wickedness.  Did she wink?  I can’t say, never before having had a young woman wink at me.  But the next moment her vinaigrette was rolling down the bank towards the brook, and I was after it.  I heard her close behind me.  She must have read my intentions by a kind of mental telepathy.

“Are you going to do it?” she whispered.

“Of course,” I answered.  “To miss such a chance would be a downright sin.”

There was a little awe in her laugh.

“Miss Thorn is the only obstacle,” I added, “and Mr. Cooke is our hope.  I think he will go by me.”

“Don’t let Miss Thorn worry you,” she said as we climbed back.

“What do you mean?” I demanded.  But she only shook her head.  We were at the top again, and Mr. Trevor was reading an appended despatch from Buffalo, stating that Mr. Allen had been recognized there, in the latter part of June, walking up and down the platform of the station, in a smoking-jacket, and that he had climbed on the Chicago limited as it pulled out.  This may have caused the Celebrity to feel a trifle uncomfortable.

“Ha!” exclaimed Mr. Trevor, as he put down the paper.  “Mr. Cooke, do you happen to have any handcuffs on the Maria?”

But my client was pouring out a stiff helping from the decanter, which he still held in his hand.  Then he approached the Celebrity.

“Don’t let it worry you, old man,” said he, with intense earnestness.  “Don’t let it worry you.  You’re my guest, and I’ll see you safe out of it, or bust.”

“Fenelon,” said Mrs. Cooke, gravely, “do you realize what you are saying?”

“You’re a clever one, Allen,” my client continued, and he backed away the better to look him over; “you had nerve to stay as long as you did.”