tragedy of Roy's broken life was the only thing that mattered. It was for him alone to decide what his father should be told. So I made no answer to his demand except to shake my head slightly.

"Curse you!" he cried. "You are all in league against me to let her escape. But she shall not escape.

His face cleared and his eyes lit up, as an idea crossed his mind.

"What were you all looking up the road for, then? Ah! I see through it. She has taken the Glasgow road! And she's not long gone either. I'll have her yet, in spite of you all."

"No!" oried Roy wildly. "You must not follow.'

But his words gave the Laird the confirmation he required.

"Stand back," he shouted, and made to start the car.

Roy jumped upon the footboard and reached over, but he was too late. The clutch was in, and the heavy car began to

There was no time to think. The car was already moving rapidly away from us, but I could not let these two unnatural enemies leave us in the midst of a straggle. I rushed down the road and took a flying leap at the collapsed hood which projected in the rear. I succeeded in pulling myself up and over, and tumbled pell-mell into the tonneau. I was just in time. The car was now putting on speed rapidly.

"Roy, Roy," I shouted, gathering myself up and leaning over towards the struggling men, "You will wreck the car. Let go, for God's sake!"

My voice seemed to bring him to his senses. He looked up at me, his face bleeding from his father's blows, and pale with unnatural exeitement.

"He must not go alone," he exclaimed desperately.

"Get in then," I oried. "And we'll both go with him."

As soon as Rey let go his hold on the steering-wheel, the Laird paid no further attention to him, but devoted himself to the management of the car. Roy olambered into the tonneau beside me, but he was not content with that. He must be in front, close to the driver. He stepped out on the footboard on the opposite side and made his way forward. A moment later he had seated himself by his father's side.

It was the strangest situation. The two men-father and son-their interests diametrically opposed, sat side by side in the gathering night, silent and determined, rushing

But Roy sat silent and motionless. I could not see his face, and vainly sought some clue to his feelings in the humped lines of his back.

It was obvious that if we had chosen the right road we must overtake the fugitive before many miles had gone by. The little two-seater was not good for more than about thirty, while the Laird must have been getting the best part of sixty out of his big RollsRoyce. I felt a vast relief

when the moon rose round and olear, and threw some light upon our wild journeying. Yet though the moonlight helped in the main, it made the darkness blacker as we rushed into some shadowed hollow amongst the hills, or ran under the gloom of a wooded stretch of roadand never a word was uttered by either of the passionate men upon whose blank silhouetted backs I gazed with a strange presentiment of disaster.

A sudden shout of exultation from the Laird brought me excitedly to my feet. He had sighted the quarry!

We were upon the orest of a long hill. Aoross the valley ahead we could see the white road climbing the opposing slope, and faintly outlined in the moonlight-the little twoseater, plodding its way upward.

Laird Tanish vented a bellow of exultant laughter.

We rushed down that hill and across the valley at breakneck speed. Luek must have been on our side, for stretches of the road were in the deepest shadow, yet Laird Tanish never for a moment slackened his pace.

When he reached the upward slope, he cursed furiously at the reduced speed, muttering to himself like the madman I sometimes thought he must be. When we reached the summit, another savage yell of triumph told me that we had gained upon the quarry. Yes, there was the two-seater, barely half a mile ahead. One could just see it as it crossed the lighter patches of the road.

Then Rey, who had come to a decision, spoke.

"You will take your accursed treasure, and let her go," he said-not questioningly, but definitely as an order.

"I promise nothing. She is a robber, a thief! I'll have no mercy on her," shouted his father savagely.

"She is my wife. I claim her," replied Roy. He spoke calmly, his voice completely under control, but as a man whose determination was unalterable.

"Be damned to all your claims," retorted the Laird, his eyes intent on the car upon which we were rapidly gaining.

But that would not do for

Roy. He leant across and clutched at the steering wheel. "Promise that you will take your treasure and let her goor I will dash the car into the roadside," he cried, and I could see enough of his face to know that he meant every word of his threat.

For me, seated helpless in the tonneau, it was no pleasant position. I was at the mercy of the passions of two men to whom, for all practical purposes, I did not exist. A ory for mercy would not be heard, or if heard would not be listened to. They were both far beyond all considerations of

reason.

"Have it your own way," replied the Laird. "I'll let her go-but much good will it do you."

Roy released his hold, and sat back in his place. To his father, nothing mattered but the money. He was prepared to agree to anything did he but get back his vanished treasure.

The car roared on its perilous way. At times the two-seater was plain ahead, again it had disappeared in the black shadows or vanished round some bend in the road-only to reappear closer to us than before, and each time, as he saw how we had gained, Laird Tanish shouted aloud in his delight.

By this time Marie had realised that she was pursued. More than once I saw her glance quickly backward over her shoulder-for we were now near enough to distinguish her clearly. Another thing showed

that she had observed us-we did not gain quite so quickly on her. Realising that we were in chase, she had let out her little car to its utmost, in a desperate effort to escape. It was hopeless, of course, for at the best she could not de much more than a mile to our two, yet it made Laird Tanish ourse viciously when he ceased to gain so quickly.

Gradually we crept up, until in the bright moonlight every detail of the car ahead stood out as clear as in the day. Soon we were separated by a bare hundred yards-fifty yards-twenty yards!

"Stop, damn you, stop!" roared the Laird.

Whether or not his voice carried amid the roar of the motors, I do not know, but Marie kept straight on. Again and again he shouted to her, but without effect. We drew nearer and nearer fifteen yards-ten yards-but still she swept on, oblivious to the shouts and ourses that were hurled at her.

I stood up, clinging to the front of the tonneau, staring ahead almost terror-struck by the speed and the excitement of the chase. A deadweight of presentiment hung over mea presentiment of disaster and death that paralysed me beyond articulation.

We were within five yards of the rear of the two-seater before the full realisation of the Laird's madness swept over me-and almost at the same moment Marie, too, guessed his damnable intent.

She turned and looked back

over her shoulder. The full light of the moon played on her dead-white face and picked out every contour of it. We were so close that she could read the Laird's purpose in his face. As its full import came home to her, an awful change came ever her pallid features. Fear-the orude bald fear of deathchanged her almost beyond recognition. With one wild shriek of terror she turned her face from us. It was the last time I was to look upon it.

Roy, too, had guessed his father's intention.

"My God!" he cried, and sprang to his feet.

For there was no attempt made by the Laird to draw alongside or pass the pursued car. In his mad rage he had forgotten even his own aim. At the risk of losing the treasure he sought-of wrecking his own car of throwing away his life, to say nothing of Roy's or mine-he was deliberately steering into the two-seater, hatred and revenge being the only emotions left to him, We were on a downward

slope. The scene, with the white moonlight playing on it, is as clear to me as though I stood there now. A little way ahead, at the bottom of the hill, was a bridge over a trickling burn, and there, too, the road curved off to the left.

"My God!" oried Roy, as he sprang to his feet. "Father, father-pull out while there is time."

A wild laugh from the Laird was his only answer.

Roy sprang at the steeringwheel. The Laird, anticipating his action, rose and faced him, with one hand still on the wheel.

There was a blow, a struggle that seemed to me to last hours, but which must have been over in a moment, and I caught one swift glimpse of the two-seater on my left as we swept past it.

The same moment the parapet of the bridge loomed big ahead. I saw two black struggling figures towering above me, looked in each other's arms

there was a crash as if the world had come to an end... and that is the last I remember.