His hands the first to be secured, and tightly, behind his back, Anisty lay helpless, glaring vindictively the while gradually he recovered consciousness and strength. Maitland cared little for his evil glances; he was busy. The burglar's ankles were next bound together and to the lounge leg; and, an instant later, a brace of half-hitches about the man's neck and the nearest support entirely eliminated him as a possible factor in subsequent events.

"Those loops around your throat," Maitland warned him curtly, "are loose enough now, but if you struggle they'll tighten and strangle you.

Understand?"

Anisty nodded, making an incoherent sound with his swollen tongue. At which Maitland frowned, smitten thoughtful with a new consideration.

"You mustn't talk, you know," he mused half aloud; and, whipping forth a handkerchief, gagged Mr. Anisty.

After which, breathing hard and in a maze of perplexity, he got to his feet. Already his hearing, quickened by the emergency, had apprised him of the situation's imminent hazards. It needed not the girl's hurried whisper, "_The servants_!" to warn him of their danger. From the rear wing of the mansion the sounds of hurrying feet were distinctly audible, as, presently, were the heavy, excited voices of men and the more shrill and frightened cries of women.

Heedless of her displeasure, Maitland seized the girl by the arm and urged her over to the open Window. "Don't hang back!" he told her nervously. "You must get out of this before they see you. Do as I tell you, please, and we'll save ourselves yet! If we both make a run for it, we're lost. Don't you understand?"

"No. Why?" she demanded, reluctant, spirited, obstinate--and lovely in his eyes.

"If he were anybody else," Maitland indicated, with a jerk of his head toward the burglar. "But didn't you see? He must be Maitland--and he's my double. I'll stay, brazen it out, then, as soon as possible, make my escape and join you by the gate. Your motor's there--what? Be ready for me...."

But she had grasped his intention and was suddenly become pliant to his will. "You're wonderful!" she told him with a little low laugh; and was gone, silently as a spirit.

The curtains fell behind her in long, straight folds; Maitland stilled their swaying with a touch, and stepped back into the room. For a moment he caught the eye of the fellow on the floor; and it was upturned to his, sardonically intelligent. But the lord of the manor had little time to debate consequences.

Abruptly the door was flung wide and a short stout man, clutching up his trousers with a frantic hand, burst into the library, brandishing overhead a rampant revolver.

"'Ands hup!" he cried, leveling at Maitland. And then, with a fallen countenance; "G-r-r-reat 'eavins, sir! _You_, Mister Maitland, sir!"

"Ah, Higgins," his employer greeted the butler blandly.

Higgins pulled up, thunderstruck, panting and perspiring with agitation. His fat cheeks quivered like the wattles of a gobbler, and his eyes bulged as, by degrees, he became alive to the situation.

Maitland began to explain, forestalling the embarrassments of cross-examination.

"By the merest accident, Higgins, I was passing in my car with a party of friends. Just for a joke I thought I'd steal up to the house and see how you were behaving yourselves. By chance--again--I happened to see this light through the library windows." And Maitland, putting an incautious hand upon the bull's-eye on the desk, withdrew it instantly, with an exclamation of annoyance and four scorched fingers.

"He's been at the safe," he added quickly, diverting attention from himself. "I was just in time."

"My wor-r-rd!" said Higgins, with emotion. Then quickly: "Did 'e get anythin', do you think, sir?"

Maitland shook his head, scowling over the butler's burly shoulders at the rapidly augmenting concourse of servants in the hallway--lackeys, grooms, maids, cooks, and what-not; a background of pale, scared faces to the tableau in the library. "This won't do," considered Maitland.

"Get back, all of you!" he ordered sternly, indicating the group with a dominant and inflexible forefinger. "Those who are wanted will be sent for. Now go! Higgins, you may stay."

"Yes, sir. Yes, sir. But wot an 'orrid 'appenin', sir, if you'll permit me--"

"I won't. Be quiet and listen. This man is Anisty--Handsome Dan Anisty, the notorious jewel thief, wanted badly by the police of a dozen cities. You understand?... I'm going now to motor to the village and get the constables; I may," he invented desperately, "be delayed--may have to get a detective from Brooklyn. If this scoundrel stirs, don't touch him. Let him alone--he can't escape if you do. Above all things, don't you dare to remove that gag!"

"Most cert'inly, sir. I shall bear in mind wot you says----"

"You'd best," grimly. "Now I'm off. No; I don't want any attendance--I know my way. And--don't--touch--that--man--till I return."

"Very good, sir."

Maitland stepped over to the safe, glanced within, cursorily, replaced a bundle of papers which he did not recall disturbing, closed the door and twirled the combination.

"Nothing gone," he announced. An inarticulate gurgle from the prostrate man drew a black scowl from Maitland. Recovering, "Good morning," he said politely to the butler, and striding out of the house by the front door, was careful to slam that behind him, ere darting into the shadows.

The moon was down, the sky a cold, opaque grey, overcast with a light drift of cloud. The park seemed very dark, very dreary; a searching breeze was sweeping inland from the Sound, soughing sadly in the tree-tops; a chill humidity permeated the air, precursor of rain. The young man shivered, both with chill and reaction from the tension of the emergency just past.

He was aware of an instantaneous loss of heart, a subsidence of the elation which had upheld him throughout the adventure; and to escape this, to forget or overcome it, took immediately to his heels, scampering madly for the road, oppressed with fear lest he should find the girl gone--with the jewels.

That she should prove untrue, faithless, lacking even that honor which proverbially obtains in the society of criminals--a consideration of such a possibility was intolerable, as much so as the suspense of ignorance. He could not, would not, believe her capable of ingratitude so rank; and fought fiercely, unreasoningly, against the conviction that she would have followed her thievish instincts and made off with the booty.... A judgment meet and right upon him, for his madness!

Heart in mouth, he reached the gates, passing through without discovering her, and was struck dumb and witless with relief when she stepped quietly from the shadows of a low branching tree, offering him a guiding hand.

"Come," she said quietly. "This way."

Without being exactly conscious of what he was about he caught the hand in both his own. "Then," he exulted almost passionately,--"then you didn't----"

His voice choked in his throat. Her face, momentarily upturned to his, gleamed pale and weary in the dreary light; the face of a tired child, troubled, saddened; yet with eyes inexpressibly sweet. She turned away, tugging at her hand.

"You doubted me, after all!" she commented, a trifle bitterly.

"I--no! You misunderstand me. Believe me, I----"

"Ah, don't protest. What does it make or mar, whether or not you trusted me?... You have," she added quietly, "the jewels safe enough, I suppose?"

He stopped short, aghast. "I! The jewels!"

"I slipped them in your coat pocket before----"

Instantly her hand was free, Maitland ramming both his own into the side pockets of his top-coat. "They're safe!"

She smiled uncertainly.

"We have no time," said she. "Can you drive--?"

They were standing by the side of her car, which had been cunningly hidden in the gloom beneath a spreading tree on the further side of the road. Maitland, crestfallen, offered his hand; the tips of her fingers touched his palm lightly as she jumped in. He hesitated at the step.

"You wish me to?"

She laughed lightly. "Most assuredly. You may assure yourself that I shan't try to elude you again----"

"I would I might be sure of that," he said, steadying his voice and seeking her eyes.

"Procrastination won't make it any more assured."

He stepped up and settled himself in the driver's seat, grasping throttle and steering-wheel; the great machine thrilled to his touch like a live thing, then began slowly to back out into the road. For an instant it seemed to hang palpitant on dead center, then shot out like a hound unleashed, _ventre-a-terre_,--Brooklyn miles away over the hood.

It seemed but a minute ere they were thundering over the Myannis bridge. A little further on Maitland slowed down and, jumping out, lighted the lamps. In the seat again,--no words had passed,--he threw in the high-speed clutch, and the world flung behind them, roaring.

Thereafter, breathless, stunned by the frenzy of speed, perforce silent, they bored on through the night, crashing along deserted highways.