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Rh criminate certain people up to the hilt. I've carried out my contract with complete success, and I was careful to be paid in advance. I took special care over the whole thing, as I intended it to be my last contract before retiring from business. As for burning my boats, as you call it, I simply don't know what you mean. I'm not the rebel chief, or anything of that kind—I'm a distinguished English visitor, who had the misfortune to go nosing into a certain curio-shop—and saw a little more than he was meant to, and so the poor fellow was kidnapped. Tomorrow, or the day after, when circumstances permit, I shall be found tied up somewhere in a pitiable state of terror and starvation."

"Ah!" I said slowly. "But what about me?"

"That's just it," said Sir Eustace softly. "What about you? I've got you here—I don't want to rub it in in any way—but I've got you here very neatly. The question is, what am I going to do with you? The simplest way of disposing of you—and, I may add, the pleasantest to myself—is the way of marriage. Wives can't accuse their husbands, you know, and I'd rather like a pretty young wife to hold my hand and glance at me out of liquid eyes—don't flash them at me so! You quite frighten me. I see that the plan does not commend itself to you?"

"It does not."

Sir Eustace sighed.

"A pity! But I am no Adelphi villain. The usual trouble, I suppose. You love another, as the books say."

"I love another."

"I thought as much—first I thought it was that long-legged, pompous ass, Race, but I suppose it's the young hero who fished you out of the Falls that night. Women have no taste. Neither of those two have half the brains that I have. I'm such an easy person to underestimate."

I think he was right about that. Although I knew well