"Only for a minute, sir. Some one picked up the little girl, an' I jumped for'ard. Miss Bengal was close enough then for a sure slantin' aim, an' I took it str'ight between the bars. Three bullets in 'er 'ed, sir.
"But you'd never believe what she did to that poor arm of 'is lordship, sir. It was 'orrible, sir. 'Orrible, that's all I say."
That was the guard's story, simple and truthful, with its bare, meager comment; but a story of real heroism, nevertheless. And it was this feature of it that Gerald Andrews had carried back to Nina Darling in her Mayfair flat, where for the longest of long hours she had been awaiting him.
And now, as they stood together again in the suite in St. James's Square, it seemed to them both that weeks, rather than less than a day, had passed since that dread yet vital moment of yesterday.
"His father must come, Gerald," she said, "if we can possibly get him here. Word the wire as you please, but make it plain that he ventured his life for a little child. And sign it 'Nina.'"
Then she gave him the address and was hurrying him away when she checked him at the last moment to seek reassurance.
"Madmen don't do heroic deeds, do they, Gerald?"
"No, Nina," he declared. "They certainly do not. They do brutal deeds, rather."
"He was eccentric, like the earl. That was all."
"He was nothing more. You may be sure he was nothing more." And he was all the while forcing himself to believe it—for her sake.