Cecilia, fortunately, gave them plenty of time for their arrangements, for she had fallen asleep again, after the alarm of the early morning, and the men must have been talking for two hours when she appeared at the library door.

She cast a look of surprise at the addition to their party and Geoffrey saw with a sort of paralysis that she was inclined to set him down as the burglar whose footsteps she had heard in the night.  To prevent any betrayal of this opinion, Geoffrey advanced a few steps to meet her, although as he did so, he realised that he had nothing to answer when she asked, as of course she did ask:  “Who is that?”

A sort of desperation, the cowardice that will sometimes attack the brave took hold of Geoffrey.  He looked at her hopelessly and would perhaps in another instant have told her the truth, had not McVay, not the least disconcerted, taken the lead.

“This, Cecilia,” he said exuberantly, laying his hand on the detective’s shoulder, “is my old friend Picklebody,—­Henderson Picklebody.  You have heard his name often enough, and he, yours, too.  Eh, Henderson, in the old Machita days?”

The detective, whose name was George P. Cook, was so taken up with his surprise at the apparition of a beautiful woman that he scarcely heard McVay.  He began to guess something of the motives that led Holland to shield this offender against the law, nor had he ever found it unwise to yield to the whims of young millionaires.

Cecilia, who was too gentle or too politic to betray the fact that she heard the interesting name of Picklebody for the first time, remarked in a tone as cheerful as she could make it: 

“I suppose that if Mr. Picklebody could get in we can get out now.”

“Can and will,” rejoined McVay beamingly.  “Hen comes as he has always come to his friends, as a rescuer.”

“I seem to require a great deal of rescuing,” said the girl, looking up at the monopolist in the art who had so far said nothing.

“Ah, but you don’t understand, my dear,” went on McVay ruthlessly cutting into the look which the lovers were exchanging; “You don’t yet understand how fortunate we are in our friends.  Henderson did not, it is true, come to find me.  It was the greatest coincidence his meeting me here.  It seems that he and Holland are both interested in a mine in Mexico, and what do you think?” McVay paused and rubbed his hands; “Really, we have the kindest friends; they have been arranging between them to offer me a job down there.  What do you think of that?”

Cecilia who had been trying to imagine any future after they left the shelter of the grey stone house, would have answered if she had been thoroughly candid that she thought Mexico was a terribly long distance away, but she only observed: 

“How very kind of them.  I am sure we shall like Mexico.”

“There, there, do you hear that?  ‘We.’  Gentlemen,” cried McVay, throwing up his hands, “I cannot leave my sister alone,—­deserted.  Consider it all off.”