"They're going to let you out, Peter," he announced, seating himself at a table and squaring his elbows, "and right away."
"I thought they never would," was Wilkinson's answer. "These three days have seemed more like three years to me.... So you got it through, did you? Surety Company fix it up ...?"
"I got the Court to reduce the bail to half a million; your daughter Leslie and the Surety Company did the rest."
Leslie started.
"I! Why I didn't know that I did anything?"
Colonel Morehead smiled.
"You assigned two-thirds of your own fortune—stocks and bonds—to the surety company to secure them. So if Peter V. skips his bail—runs away,"—he was leering at him now,—"you stand to lose, you see."
"Runs away," repeated Leslie. The words were like music to her ears. "What a splendid idea! It would be the best way out of it, after all. You could take the Marchioness," she went on enthusiastically, "and steam to the ends of the earth!"
"Haven't I told you, Colonel, that she was a hard-headed little proposition," said her father, with a good deal of pride. "Not a bad idea, the Marchioness. Now, if—if I were guilty, instead of being innocent...."
Colonel Morehead grunted.