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"Oh, Jean! I am so happy!"

"And I, too, Mazi !" and the man drew the girl to him, a strange light shining in his eyes.

They sat down just outside the little cottage, where the gleam from the lamp would not reflect on them too strongly, and talked of many things. Of old things that are ever new, and of new things that are destined to be old.

The second figure of the procession that seemed to make the lonely cottage on the moor a rendezvous that evening, was not far behind that of the lover. It was a figure of a man in a natty blue serge suit. A panama hat of expensive make sat jauntily on top of his head on which curled close, heavy black hair.

"I wonder if the colonel is coming?" mused Jack Young, as he stopped to let Jean Forette hurry on a little in advance. Then a backward lance told him that two other figures were joining the procession. These last two - a man and a woman - walked more slowly, and they did not talk, except now and then to pass a few words.

"Then the marriage was legal, after all?" the woman asked.

"Yes, Kate, it was," answered Colonel Ashley. "You are his lawful wife."

"And he only told me I wasn't, so as to shame me - to make me leave him, and render me desperate?"

"That, and for other reasons. But the fact remains that you are his wife."

"And this other ceremony - this other woman?"

"No legal wife at all."

"I am sorry for her."

"Yes, she is but a girl. If I had known in time I might have stopped it. But it is too late now. Is he there, Jack?" he asked, as he joined the man in the panama hat.

"Yes, sitting outside with Mazi. Going to close in?"

"Might as well. Watch him carefully. He's desperate, and - "

"I know - full of dope. Well I`m ready for him."

And so the trio - the last of the procession, if we except Fate - went closer to the cottage whence so cheerfully gleamed the light.

"Who is there? What do you want?"

It was the snarling voice of Jean Forette, late chauffeur for the Carwells, challenging.

"Who is it?" he cried.

The three figures came on.

Suddenly there was a blinding flash, and the gleam from a powerful electric torch shone in the faces of Jack Young, Morocco Kate and Colonel Ashley.

There was a gasp of surprise and terror trom the man beside Mazi - the man who had thrust out the torch to see who it was advancing and closing in on him through the darkness.

"Ah!" sneered the Frenchman, recovering his self-possession. "It is my friend the officer. Ah, I am glad to see you - but just now - not!" and he seemed to spit out the words.

"Maybe not. I can't always come when I'm expected, nor where I'm wanted," said Colonel Ashley coolly. "Now, my friend - Jack!" he cried sharply.

"I've got him, Colonel," was the cool answer, and there was a cry of agony from the chauffeur as his wrist was turned, almost to the breaking point, while there dropped from his paralyzed hand a magazine pistol, thudding to the sand at his feet.

"Go on, Colonel," said Jack, who had slipped off to one side, out of the focus of the glaring light, just in time to prevent Jean Forette from using the weapon he had quickly taken from a side pocket. "Go on, close in. I've drawn his stinger."

"Messieurs, what does this mean?" demanded the girl beside Jean. "Who are you? What do you want? Ah, it is you - and you !" and she turned first to Colonel Ashley and then to Jack Young. "You who have talked so kindly to me - who have asked me so much about - about my husband! It is you who come like thieves and assassins! Speak to them, Jean! Tell them to go!"

The Frenchman was breathing heavily, for Jack had a merciless grip on him.

"Speak to them, Jean!" implored the girl, while her mother, standing in the door with her knitting, looked wonderingly on. "Why do they come to take you like a traitor?"

"It - it's all a mistake !" panted the chauffeur.

"You've got me wrong, messieurs. I - I didn't do it. It was all an accident. He - I - Oh, my God! You!" and he started back as Morocco Kate stepped toward him, pulling from her face the veil that had covered it when the glaring light showed. Jack Young now held