"YOU ARE OUR PRISONER!" For hours Lester Armstrong lay like one stunned, turning over and over in his mind the awful revelation he had heard.

That a human being, especially his cousin, Clinton Kendale, should have plotted so horribly against him seemed almost past believing.

Then he remembered how treacherous he had been in his early days, and he wondered that he had been so mad as to have trusted him.
"Heaven save my darling from him!" he cried out in an agony too great for words.

To realize that she was in the mercy of such a man was a sorrow so great that all else on earth paled before it.

Then a mighty resolve came to him--to foil the villainous plot, weak though he was; he must make his escape and fly to his darling's aid.
He knew that Clinton Kendale would follow out his line of action, keeping him there as long as it was necessary--that is, until he learned all the secrets that he was so anxious to ascertain--then he would put him out of the way with as little compunction as he would a dog.