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 and the matter would have to be opened all over again.

“Now then!” said the stout young man.

George regarded him with a critical and unfriendly eye. He disliked this fatty degeneration excessively. Looking him up and down he could find no point about him that gave him the least pleasure, with the single exception of the state of his hat, in the side of which he was rejoiced to perceive there was a large and unshapely dent.

“You thought you had shaken me off! You thought you'd given me the slip! Well, you’re wrong!”

George eyed him coldly.

“I know what’s the matter with you,” he said. “Someone’s been feeding you meat!”

The young man bubbled with fury. His face turned a deeper scarlet. He gesticulated.

“You blackguard! Where’s my sister?”

At this extraordinary remark the world rocked about George dizzily. The words upset his entire diagnosis of the situation. Until that moment he had looked upon this man as a Lothario, a pursuer of damsels. That the other could possibly have any right on his side had never occurred t ohim. He felt unmanned by the shock. It seemed to cut the ground from under his feet.

“Your sister!”

“You heard what I said! Where is she?”

George was still endeavoring to adjust his scattered faculties. He felt foolish and apologetic. He had imagined himself unassailably in the right, and it now appeared that he was in the wrong.

For a moment he was about to become conciliatory. Then the recollection of the girl’s panic and her hints at some trouble which threatened her—presumably