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Rh For a few mad seconds everything was blurred. Then I pushed her away. Her arms still clung, but I was the stronger. She reeled back against the rustic rail and pressed her hands against her temples.

"But I'm not," I muttered, and stepped away. "As long as my half-brother and his angel of a wife continue to believe in me I shall never break faith—and this is good-by, Léontine."

She looked at me with a curious expression in her tawny eyes.

"And if they should lose their faith in you?" she asked.

I shrugged. "It's my business to see that they never do," I answered.

Léontine gave me a curious smile. "We'll see, Frank," said she, softly. "Once a thief, always a thief. It's in the blood."

Suddenly she turned and walked down the path and disappeared behind the heavy foliage.

That afternoon John took me up to see the new car that he was promoting. The company planned to make only big fellows. One of their six-cylinders was in the garage and we took her out for a spin over the road. We made the run to Chartres in about fifty minutes, John driving. The chief mécanicien was with us and his son, a bright youngster of eighteen, named Gustave.

On the way home we stopped at the Automobile Club for a business talk with three members of the company with whom John had made a rendezvous: a Swiss engineer, the General Director and the General Superintendent. It was arranged that I should take charge of the Paris office, my principal duty