"Nothing like that!" cried Archie hastily. "She just fancies the life—thinks it offers me a good chance to prove my mettle. She hates conventionality."
This reference to Isabel Perry, remote and guarded as it was, he defended only on the ground that it was necessary in some way to meet the Governor half-way in his confidences. And what he had said was really true, though to be sure Isabel could hardly be held responsible for the shooting at the Congdon house. He wondered what Isabel would say if she could see him with a criminal beside him, joy-riding in a stolen car. And it was no lie that he sincerely believed that he loved her. No other girl had ever roused him so much, or given him so good reason for standing off and taking a look at himself. His thoughts of her had led him far afield when the Governor remarked ruminatively:
"Do you manage to see her? That's the devil of it in my case! The lady's forbidden to recognize me in any way and the right reverend father is a tart old party and keeps sharp watch of her. You'd think a girl of twenty-two or thereabouts who spends her time in good works for the heathen and runs a Sunday-school class in a slum would be indulged in her admiration for a jolly rogue like me! But the facts are decidedly otherwise. She's never quite brought her nerve to the point of breaking home ties and bolting with me; but she's declined to marry all the bachelor and widower dominies in the paternal diocese on my account. And a young bishop of the brightest prospects. Actually, my dear Archie! There's a steadfast soul for you! But I can't see her and the regular mails are closed to us. Nevertheless we have an arrangement—highly romantic, by which if she ever needs me or thinks I can serve her in any way she's to leave a note in a certain place. It's her own idea and very pretty. Savors of the good old times when bold knights went riding up to the castle and yelled to the flinty-hearted duke inside to lower the draw-bridge and send out his daughter to be married on the spot or he'd be dropped in the moat with all his armor for a sinker."
Archie thought it would be a fine thing if he could make an arrangement with Isabel by which he could hear from her on his travels and he mustered courage to ask the Governor how he managed his line of communication.
"The device is the simplest possible. In our jauntings we shall pass a town where she visits a good deal—the home of an ancient aunt. It's a jolly old place, big grounds, with elms and maples all round, and there's a tea house with a tile floor, and there's a particular blue tile under a bench that can be pried out with a pen knife. That's our post-office, and much safer than registered mail. Of course my business correspondence is a different matter. I pick that up in countless places between here and California—reports of the boys, their hopes and ambitions and hints of schemes for acquiring sudden wealth. If you'd like to use some of these addresses and have mail forwarded I'll be glad to oblige you. You know how fussy the government is about the use of the mail for irregular purposes? Well, it rather tickled me to get some envelopes with S. S. S. P. printed in the corner and the number of a vacant lot in Sioux City as the address. A careless eye would think the initials stood for some sort of learned society but the real translation is Society for the Segregation of Stolen Property. I always use these in communicating with the brotherhood."
"There's a good deal about the business I don't know," said Archie with twinges of envy and admiration. "My bridges are all burned behind me and I'm not getting mail anywhere; but I'll remember your offer."
Further conversation was ended by the swinging of a lantern across the road.
"Ah!" exclaimed the Governor, with a curious rising inflexion. "I've been looking for that."
He slowed up instantly and in a moment halted car. The headlights played upon two men standing belligerently in front of the roadster.
"Good evening, gentlemen!" cried the Governor. "Short of gas or what's the trouble?"