kink in the Celebrity’s character.  There was nothing Bohemian in that character; it yearned after the eminently respectable.  Its very eccentricities were within the limits of good form.  The Celebrity shunned the biscuits and beer of the literary clubs, and his books were bound for the boudoir.  To have it proclaimed in the sensational journals that the hands of this choice being had been locked for grand larceny was a thought too horrible to entertain.  His very manservant would have cried aloud against it.  Better a hundred nights in a cave than one such experience!

Miss Trevor’s behavior that evening was so unrestful as to lead me to believe that she, too, was going through qualms of sympathy for the victim.  As we were breaking up for the evening she pulled my sleeve.

“Don’t you think we have carried our joke a little too far, Mr. Crocker?” she whispered uneasily.  “I can’t bear to think of him in that terrible place.”

“It will do him a world of good,” I replied, assuming a gayety I did not feel.  It is not pleasant to reflect that some day one’s own folly might place one in alike situation.  And the night was dismally cool and windy, now that the fire had gone out.  Miss Trevor began to philosophize.

“Such practical pleasantries as this,” she said, “are like infernal machines:  they often blow up the people that start them.  And they are next to impossible to steer.”

“Perhaps it is just as well not to assume we are the instruments of Providence,” I said.

Here we ran into Miss Thorn, who was carrying a lantern.

“I have been searching everywhere for you two mischief-makers,” said she.  “You ought to be ashamed of yourselves.  Heaven only knows how this little experiment will end.  Here is Aunt Maria, usually serene, on the verge of hysterics:  she says he shouldn’t stay in that damp cave another minute.  Here is your father, Irene, organizing relief parties and walking the floor of his tent like a madman.  And here is Uncle Fenelon insane over the idea of getting the poor, innocent man into Canada.  And here is a detective saddled upon us, perhaps for days, and Uncle Fenelon has gotten his boatman drunk.  You ought to be ashamed of yourselves,” she repeated.

Miss Trevor laughed, in spite of the gravity of these things, and so did I.

“Oh, come, Marian,” said she, “it isn’t as bad as all that.  And you talk as if you hadn’t anything to be reproached for.  Your own defence of the Celebrity wasn’t as strong as it might have been.”

By the light of the lantern I saw Miss Thorn cast one meaning look at Miss Trevor.

“What are you going to do about it?” asked Miss Thorn, addressing me.  “Think of that unhappy man, without a bed, without blankets, without even a tooth-brush.”

“He hasn’t been wholly off my mind,” I answered truthfully.  “But there isn’t anything we can do to-night, with that beastly detective to notice it.”