Part 22 (1/2)

There could be but one end to the unequal contest The girl--a helpless spectator--realized that, though she could with difficulty perceive what took place, it was all so chaotic She tried to draw nearer, but bearded faces intervened; rough hands thrust her back She would have called out but the words would not coh a iant in size He carried an oaken bar in his hand and now stole sideith allantly

”No, no!” Betty Dalrymple's voice came back to her suddenly; she exclaimed wildly, incoherently

But the foreman of the stokers raised the bar, waited He found his opportunity; his arm descended

CHAPTER XIX

AND THEN--

Mr Heatherblooained consciousness, or se place His first i head, but he could not do this on account of two iron bands that held his wrists to a stanchion His legs, too, he next becauely aware, were fastened by a similar contrivance to the deck He closed his eyes, and leaned back; the throbbings see harder and harder until nature at length came to his relief and oblivion once ain opened his eyes he could not tell The shooting throes were still there but he could endure theazed around The light grudgingly admitted by a small port-hole revealed a bare prison-like cell

Realization of what it allthere, swept over his He did not succeed in releasing hi waves of pain in his head What did she think of her valiant rescuer now, he who had raised her hopes so high but to dash theht hi his wrists while he ate and fastening theain when he had finished The hours that seeht he had another visitor but was not sure The delirium had returned; he strove to think lucidly, but knew hieinov came to him, that she looked down on him

”_Mon Dieu_! It is s What a lame and i better from you,h what arts, I do not kno are theHe disdained to reply

”Really, I a betrayed who you were to the prince”

”Why didn't you?” he said

She laughed ”Perhaps because I am an artist, and it seemed inartistic to intervene--to interrupt the action at an inopportune moment--to stultify what promised to be an unusually involved conized you on the _Nevski_, it was like one of those divine surprises of the master dramatist, M Sardou Really, I was indebted for the thrill of it Besides, had I spoken, the princeso That, too, would have been inartistic, would have turned a comedy of love into rank melodrama”

Rank nonsense! Of course such a conversation could not be real But he cried out in the dream: ”What ood am I here?”

”To her, you mean?”

”To her, of course” Bitterly

The vision's eyes were very bright; her plastic, rather e, readjusting it about his head That, naturally, could not be She who had betrayed Betty Dalrymple to the prince would not be sedulous about Mr Heatherblooruous solicitude! ”Who are you? No co-tender--of that I am sure What have you been?”

”What--” Wildly

”There! there!” said half-soothingly that immaterial, now maternal visitant ”Never mind”

”How is she? Where is she?” he de to be, very soon now, the prince's bride”

”Never”

”Don't let his excellency hear you say so in that tone He thinks you only a detective, not an ardent, though secret wooer yourself The Strogareffs brook no rivals,” she laughed, ”and he is already like a madman I should tremble for your life if he dreamed--”

”Help me to help her--” he said ”It will be more than worth your while