His two Chicago friends were charmed with his romance when he told it to them, one day on the steamer, just before they landed on the bonny shore of England.
"I only borrowed the name of Jack Daly," he laughed. "The one that belongs to me is Harry Leland, and my title will be Lord Putnam."
They congratulated him warmly. It was a romance in real life, they said, and Ralph Washburn declared he should weave it into a novel.
"But you do not know the most romantic part of it yet," said the young man, with a sigh. He debated the question with himself a moment, then decided it could do no harm to confide in his two noble friends.
So, sadly enough, he told them the story of the love affair that had brought him to Chicago, keeping back nothing.
"So now you know how I came by the wound that made you two my stanch friends for life, and you can understand why I let my enemy alone, rather than bring into publicity the name of a woman I loved," he ended.
"But you left the case in the hands of a detective?" said Leroy Hill.
"Yes, he is to find Clifford Standish and shadow him until it is found out whether he lied to me about Miss Harding. He has full instructions to act in my place during my absence."
"And this beautiful girl that you loved when you were simply Harry Hawthorne, the New York fireman, do you mean that if she is found and proved innocent that you will stoop to her now that you have come into your ancestral honors?" inquired the romantic young author, with interest.
"If I were a king I would raise her to my throne!" replied the ardent lover, proudly.