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 courage in going to meet you at Liverpool in ignorance that we had drawn off the cutthroats who he had reason to believe would dog him directly he left the house. Alec had to make up for a bad lapse. We never allowed laxity in our service, and Alec was lax, very lax, in giving them that chance on the railway.”

Beaumanoir sat up at this, and, leaning forward, tapped the General on the knee.

“Oblige me by not drawing comparisons,” he said—for him—quite fiercely. “If I have come out of the ordeal of the last few days unscathed, and with the honor of my house untarnished, it is in great part due to Alec’s loyalty to a poor weak coward. Had I done my duty I should have gone to the police the moment Lestrade unfolded her plot, instead of embarking on a course of secrecy and moral cowardice which kept alive the danger to Senator Sherman and his charge. I did not see it at the time, but the gang would assuredly have matured some other plan for trying for the plunder, using some other wretched tool, perhaps, if they hadn’t been gammoned into believing that I had caved in. It was gross