Leaning out of the window behind him the girl caught his arm.  “Don’t fire,” she said.  “Don’t you see it is Billy?”

There was a pause—­the fraction of a second, but momentous, for Geoffrey realised that all his threats to McVay had been idle, that with that touch on his arm he could not shoot.

Nevertheless he raised his voice and shouted thunderously:  “McVay!”

The figure turned, hesitated, saw, perhaps, the gleam of the moon on steel and began to retrace his steps.

Steadily with the revolver still upon him he moved back to the house.  Under the piazza he stopped and waved his hand.

“I’m afraid they got away from us, Holland.  I did my best.”

“There was a burglar then!” said the girl in the little whisper of recent fright.

“By Heaven, he shall not trouble you,” returned Holland with more earnestness than seemed to be required.  Then he left her and went down to meet McVay.

“You were just about half a second ahead of a bullet,” he remarked, ushering him into the hall.  To be caught and brought back is so ignominious a position that Geoffrey looked to see even McVay at a disadvantage, but looked in vain.  The aspect worn was a particularly self-satisfied one.

“I was aware I took a risk,” he answered; “I took it gladly for my sister’s sake.”

“For your sister’s sake?”

“Yes, and yours.  Be honest, Holland, what could be so great a relief to you as to find I had disappeared.  You are too narrow-minded, too honourable, you would say, to connive at it, but you would be delighted to know that you need not prosecute me.”

“If I shot you, I should be saved the trouble of prosecuting.”

“But at what a cost!  I refer to my sister’s regard.  No, no, the thing, if you had only been quick enough to see it, was for me to escape.  It was a risk, of course, but a risk I gladly took for my sister’s sake.  I would take longer ones for her.”

“Do you mean that?”

“Of course.”

“Then take this revolver and go out and shoot yourself.”

McVay looked very thoughtful.  Then, he said gravely, “No, no, Holland.  To take a risk is one thing,—­to kill myself quite another.  I have always had a strong prejudice against suicide.  I think it a cowardly action.  And it would be no help to you.  She would not believe that I had committed suicide.  She knows my views on the subject, and could imagine no motive.  No, that would not do at all.  I’m surprised at the suggestion.  It is against my principles.”

“Your principles!” Geoffrey sneered.  Nevertheless, he was not a little altered in opinion.  It had been something of a shock to him to find that he could not shoot at the critical instant.  It had shaken his faith in himself.  He began to doubt if he would be capable of sending the man to state’s prison when Cecilia besought his pity.  His own limitations faced him.  He was not the