With a fellow like that--a diabolical rascal with a diabolical gift for impersonation--one can't be too careful.

Meantime, it is just as well not to have confided this news to your daughters, who, naturally, would be nervous and upset; but I assume that you have taken some one of the servants into your confidence in order that nobody may pass them and enter the house under any pretext whatsoever ?" "No, I have not.

Miss Lorne advised against it, and, as I am always guided by her, I said nothing of the matter to anybody." "Was that wrong, do you think, Mr.Narkom ?" queried Ailsa anxiously.

"I feared that if they knew they might lose their heads, and that my cousins, who are intensely nervous and highly emotional, might hear of it, and add to our difficulties by becoming hysterical and demanding our attention at a time when we ought to be giving every moment to watching for the possible arrival of that man.

And as he has always lived up to the strict letter of his dreadful promises heretofore, I knew that he was not to be expected before nightfall.