Page:The Duke Decides (1904).djvu/168

 pect, Alec’s detachment was effected by a ruse on the part of the graybeard at the Cecil—well, I take off my hat to that gentleman for his consideration.”

As the train gathered speed, rushing through the twinkling suburban lights, the Duke put his feet on the opposite cushions and reviewed the situation—calmly, but always with but slender faith in being able “to worry through” with his life. That had really become quite a secondary object with him, so far as his personal safety was concerned; yet his present attitude was to escape the attentions of Ziegler long enough to convey a warning to Senator Sherman of the plot against him. Whether his nerves would be proof against the strain till the Senator’s arrival at Liverpool was a phase of the case which he did not care to contemplate too closely.

Ziegler, he felt sure, would have grasped the position to a nicety, and would use every device in his apparently limitless repertoire to give him his quietus before Leonie’s father set foot on shore. It might well be that another attempt would be made on him before he reached the sheltering zone of Prior’s Tar-