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 prove to be worth the sum offered by M. Duponnet. Either contingency seemed too good to be true. Besides, S. Gedge Antiques belonged to a conservative school, among whose articles of faith was a certain trite proverb about a bird in the hand.

It went to the old man's heart to accept four thousand guineas for a work that might be worth so very much more. June could hear him breathing heavily. In her tense ear that sound dominated even the furious beating of her own heart. A kind of dizziness came over her, as only too surely she understood that the wicked old man was giving in. Before her very eyes he was going to surrender her own private property for a fabulous sum.

"Four t'ousand guineas, Meester Gedge," said M. Duponnet, with quite an air of nonchalance. But he knew well enough that the old man was about to "fall."

"It's giving it away, Mussewer," whined Uncle Si. "It's giving it away."

"Zat I don't t'ink, Meester Gedge," said the French gentleman, quietly unbuttoning his coat and taking a fountain pen and a cheque book from an inner pocket. "It's a risque—a big risque. It may not be Van Roon at all—and zen where are we?"

"You know as well as I do that it's a Van Roon," Uncle Si verged almost upon tears.

"Very well, Meester Gedge, if you prefer ze big chance." And cheque book in hand the French gentleman paused.

June was torn. And she could tell by the strange whine in the rasping voice that the Old Crocodile was also torn.

At this moment of crisis, Mr. Thornton interposed