CHAPTER XL.
STRIKING WHILE THE IRON IS HOT.
As Travers Gladwin skimmed up the stairs to warn Helen of the arrival of her aunt, he was thinking on four sides of his brain at the same time and revolving together so many lightning plans, that the result was a good deal of a jumble. In consequence, he was wild-eyed, out of breath and more than a trifle incoherent when he parted the crimson curtains of the den and precipitately entered.
“Your aunt,” he began as he checked his momentum and stopped against a table beside which Miss Burton was seated, “but don’t get up––and don’t be frightened. She need never know. I’ll take the blame for everything. I am the Travers Gladwin you were going to elope with, and I’ll go to jail if necessary.”
He paused for breath, while Helen rose from her chair and protested.
“Impossible, Mr. Gladwin. I”–––
“Nothing of the sort,” the young man stopped her. “It is perfectly possible, and I only wish that I were the man you had chosen to elope with. I’d elope with you now––in a minute––aunt or no aunt.”