Maisie White had no illusions. When the report came to her that the detective she had employed had passed his services over to the man he was engaged to watch, she knew that the full force of the Boundary Gang would be employed to her extinction. Strangely enough, she did not appear to be disturbed, as she confessed to Stafford King. They were lunching together at the Hotel Palatine and the detective was unusually thoughtful.

"Why don't you go out of London?" he asked.

"I must go on with my work," she said.

"What is your work?" he asked.

"I have told you once," she replied. "I am trying to disentangle my father from disgrace. I am working to put him apart when the day of reckoning comes."

"You've not heard from him?" he asked.

She shook her head, and her eyes filled with tears.

"He has been a good father to me," she said, "the kindest and best of daddies. It is dreadful to think----" her lips quivered and she could go no further.

Nor could Stafford King make matters any easier for her. He knew better than she the depth of Solomon White's commitments. If the gang ever smashed, and if by good fortune the law ever took its course, there was no hope for Solomon White's escape from his share of the responsibility.

"Why do you think your father went away?" he asked, to turn the subject to a new aspect.

She did not reply instantly.

"I think he was scared," she said after a while. "I was shocked when I discovered how much in awe of the colonel he stood. He was just terrified at the threat, and yet I know he would have given his life to protect me from harm. I think it was just I that spurred him on to make the plans he did."

Stafford King agreed with a gesture.

"Now what are we going to do about you?" he asked, half-humorously, half-seriously. "I cannot let you go wandering loose about London--I'm scared to death as it is."

She smiled at him.

"You had better lock me up," she said flippantly and he nodded in the same spirit.

"I know a little house in St. John's Wood that would serve us beautifully as a prison," he said. "It has ten rooms and two admirable bathrooms. There is central heating and a large shady garden, and if you will only let me take you before a Justice of the Peace, or even a commonplace clergyman----"

She shook her head.

"That isn't prison," she said quietly and put her hand over the table.

He caught it in his and held it tight.

"Maisie," he said, "you know I love you. I love you more dearly than anything in the world."

She did not speak.

"As my wife," he went on, "you would be safe and I should be happy. I just want you all the time."

Gently she disengaged her hand, shaking her head with a little smi............