old playmate better than to suppose he would give you up? Thank your stars, girl, you are now quit of that scoundrel, and that the very steps he took to ruin you have put it in my power to save you from him and from your wilful self."
I forgot that he did not know Phillip and I had been married that morning, and, indignant that he should speak so of my husband, I accused him in turn of seeking to destroy me. How dared he interfere with me? How dared he speak ill of a man who was worth a thousand of himself—who had not persecuted me all my life, who loved me honestly and truly, and whom I loved with all my soul? I called Kenneth Moore a coward, a cruel, cowardly villain, and commanded him to stop the balloon, to let me go back to my home—back to Phillip Rutley, who was the only man I could ever love in the whole wide world!
"You are out of your senses, Minnie," he answered, and he clasped me tightly in his arms, while the balloon mounted higher and higher. "You are angry with me now, but when you realize that you are mine for ever and cannot escape, you will forgive me, and be grateful to me—yes, and love me, for loving you so well."
"Never!" I cried, "never! You are a thief! You have stolen me, and I hate you! I shall always hate you. Rather than endure you, I will make the balloon fall right down, down, and we will both be dashed to pieces."
I was so furious with him that I seized the valve-line that swung near me at the moment, and tugged at it with all my might. He grasped my hand, but I wound the cord about my arms, held on to it with my teeth, and he could not drag it from me. In the struggle we nearly overturned the car. I did not care. I would gladly have fallen out and lost my life now that I had lost Phillip.
Then Kenneth took from his pocket a large knife and unclasped it. I laughed aloud, for I thought he meant to frighten me into submission. But I soon saw what he meant to do. He climbed up the cordage and cut the valve-line through.
"Now you are conquered!" he cried, "and we will voyage together to the world's end."
I had risen to my feet and watched him, listened to him with a thrill of despair; but even as his triumphant words appalled me the car swayed down upon the side opposite to where I stood—the side where still hung the long line with the grapnel—and I saw the hands of a man upon the ledge; the arms, the head, and the shoulders of a man, of a man who the next minute was standing in the car, I fast in his embrace: Phillip Rutley, my true love, my husband!
Then it seemed to me that the balloon collapsed, and all things melted, and I was whirling away—down, down, down!
"I lay in Phillip's arms."
How long I was unconscious I do not know, but it was daylight when I opened my eyes. It was piercingly cold—snow was falling, and although I lay in Phillip's arms with his coat over me, while he sat in his shirt-sleeves holding me. On the other side stood Kenneth Moore. He also was in his shirt-sleeves. His coat also had
