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122 His one sound hand groped out and sought a mass of papers on the desk beside him, sorting out from among then two yellow forms. Painfully he blinked over these and slowly his pain-bent lips conned their wording.

"Alan and Rose safe with me—will bring both home to-morrow night without fail," he read the first aloud, and then the second: "Have motor-car waiting for me to-morrow morning from three o'clock till called for—New Bedford waterfront—Judith."

"No!" he affirmed with the fervour of one persuaded by his own desires, "I must not doubt the girl! Patience!" he whispered, and, closing his eyes, rested his head against the back of the chair and was for a long time still. … But when the girl entered softly, as if fearful of disturbing his slumbers, she found him with head erect and eyes ablaze.

"Judith!" he cried, his great voice vibrating like a brazen bell. "At last! You have brought him? Where is he?" The girl dropped her head. After an instant of incredulous disappointment the man shot a single, frigid question at her.

"You have failed?"

"I have failed," she confessed.

"Why?"

She shrugged slightly. "Who knows why one fails? I did my best; he was too much for me, out-