CHAPTER XXI.
"I LIKE HER BETTER THAN ANY I HAVE MET--I SHALL MARRY HER." Kendale was clever and quick of resource.

He realized that there must be sudden action on his part.

Should he fly headlong from the place and give up all?
Then a remembrance of the yacht and the horses came to him, and he set his teeth hard together.
"I will see this game through, come what may," he muttered.
At that instant a daring thought came to him, and he acted upon it before he could have time to back down through cowardice.
Throwing open the window wide, he stepped boldly out upon the ledge in full view of the angry crowd of five hundred employees.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he exclaimed, raising his voice to a high key that all might hear, "I have something to say, and it is only due me that you should listen and then pass judgment.
"Please believe me, one and all, I had no thought, no wish to offend Mr.
Conway's pretty daughter Margery.

I may as well own the truth.

I had fallen desperately in love with the girl and was telling her so, and was just on the point of asking her to accept me as a suitor for her hand when she, mistaking my motives, it appears, called for assistance, and I was not permitted to speak in order to explain.
"Assuring her and all of you that my motives were most honorable, I beg of you to reconsider leaving me in this abrupt fashion.