“I am in your power and at your mercy,” he said, “but though you torture me on the rack I shall never tell you what you want to know.  That safe contains valuable papers which belong to others; they are secure in my keeping.  You can kill me, but the secret of the safe combination will die with me.”

Kendale laughed a little short, hard laugh.

“You are mad to thus defy me,” he cried, harshly, “when you stop to consider that I can open it in any event.  I can simply say the combination has slipped from my mind.  Who is there to question Mr. Lester Armstrong, the head of the firm?  No one—­no one.  It will be broken open quite as soon as workmen can be found to accomplish it.”

The lines about the sufferer’s mouth tightened; he clutched his hands hard.  He knew the dare devil Kendale would stop at nothing—­nothing.

“I will give you until daylight to decide.  I promise you that it will go hard with you if you are not complaisant.”

With that he turned on his heel and quitted the room.

During all the long hours of that never-to-be-forgotten night Lester Armstrong lay there on his pallet of straw praying for strength to foil the villain—­for Heaven to direct him what to do.

For the Marsh millions he cared nothing; but his heart was wrung with anguish when he trusted himself to think of Faynie.

He knew that Kendale had kept the appointment made by himself, but for some reason the elopement could not have taken place.  A thousand causes might have prevented its successful carrying out, though Kendale was sure of a satisfactory finish, he imagined.

Daylight broke at last; he could see it dimly through the dust-begrimed, boarded-up windows; but it was not until the sun had well risen that his cousin put in an appearance again.  Lester was suffering intense pain from the terrible bruise on his head at the base of the brain, but he set his teeth hard together, determining that his mortal foe should not know it.

“Ah!” exclaimed Kendale, sneeringly.  “Wide awake, I see!—­probably the fixed habit of years.  You have, no doubt, come to a more sensible frame of mind than I left you in last night, I trust, regarding the information I want concerning the combination of the big safe in the private office of Marsh & Co.”

“I will never reveal it to you,” cried Lester.  “Never!”

For an instant a black, malignant scowl swept over Kendale’s face, but after a moment’s deep thought he turned on his heel again, laughing immoderately as he stepped to the door and held a low conversation with the two men who were still in the outer apartment, and in a trice they had joined Kendale, one of them still wearing the black mask which he had used the night before.

“We will proceed to relieve him of his private papers, keys, wallet, and so forth,” said Kendale; and, as if in compliance with some previously arranged plan, the three set upon Lester, and in his almost helpless condition it was not difficult to overpower him and take from him his possessions, which Kendale quickly took charge of.