With an infuriated oath the German stopped short: but he dared not ignore the readiness with which his tormentor imitated the manoeuvre and kept the pistol trained through the fabric of his raincoat.
"Yes—?" the adventurer enquired with an exasperating accent of surprise.
"Understand me," Ekstrom muttered vindictively: "next time I'll show you no mercy—"
"But if thereisno next time? We're not apt to meet again, you know."
"That's something beyond your knowledge—"
"You think so? … But shan't we resume our stroll? People might notice us standing here—you with your teeth bared like an ill-tempered dog…. Oh, thank you!"
And as they moved on, Lanyard continued: "Shall I explain why we're not apt to meet again?"
"If it amuses you."
"Thanks once more! … For the simple reason that Paris satisfies me; so here I stop."
"Well?" the spy asked with a blank sidelong look.
"Whereas you are leaving Paris tonight."
"What makes you think that?"
"Because you value your thick hide too highly to remain, my dear captain." Having gained the corner of the boulevard St. Denis, Lanyard pulled up. "One moment, by your leave. You see yonder the entrance to the Metro—don't you? And here, a dozen feet away, a perfectly able-bodied sergent de ville? Let this fateful conjunction impress you properly: for five minutes after you have descended to the Métro—or as soon as the noise of a train advises me you've had one chance to get away—I shall mention casually to the sergo—that I have seen Captain Ek—"
"Hush!" the German protested in a hiss of fright.
"But certainly: I've no desire to embarrass you: publicity must be terribly distasteful to one of your sensitive and retiring disposition…. But I trust you understand me? On the one hand, there's the Métro; on the other, there's the flic; while here, you must admit, am I, as large as life and very much on the job! … And inasmuch as I shall certainly mention my suspicions to the minion of the law—as aforesaid—I'd advise you to be well out of Paris before dawn!"
There was murder in the eyes of the spy as he lingered, truculently glowering at the smiling adventurer; and for an instant Lanyard was well-persuaded he had gone too far, that even there, even on that busy junction of two crowded thoroughfares, Ekstrom would let his temper get the better of his judgment and risk everything in an attempt upon the life of his despoiler.
But he was mistaken.
With a surly shrug the spy swung about and marched straight to the kiosk of the underground railway, into which, without one backward glance, he disappeared.
Two minutes later the earth beneath Lanyard's feet quaked with the crash and rumble of a north-bound train.
He waited three minutes longer; but Ekstrom didn't reappear; and at length convinced that his warning had proved effectual, Lanyard turned and made off.
For all that success had rewarded his effrontery, Lanyard's mind was far from easy during the subsequent hour that he spent before attempting to rejoin Lucy Shannon, dodging, ducking and doubling across Paris and back again, with design to confuse and confound any jackals of the Pack that might have picked up his trail as adventitiously as Ekstrom had.
His delight, indeed, in discomfiting his dupe was chilled by apprehension that it were madness, simply because the spy had proved unexpectedly docile, to consider the affaire Ekstrom closed. In the very fact of that docility inhered something strange and ominous, a premonition of evil which was hardly mitigated by finding the girl safe and sound under the wing of madame la concierge, in the little court of private stables, where he rented space for his car, off the rue des Acacias.
Monsieur le concierge, it appeared, was from home; and madame, thick-witted, warm-hearted, simple body that she was, discovered a phase of beaming incuriosity most grateful to the adventurer, enabling him as it did to dispense with embarrassing explanations, and to whisk the girl away as soon as he liked.
This last was just as soon as personal examination had reassured him with respect to his automobile—superficially an ordinary motor-cab of the better grade, but with an exceptionally powerful engine hidden beneath its hood. A car of such character, passing readily as the town-car of any family in modest circumstances, or else as what Paris calls a voiture de remise (a hackney car without taximeter) was a tremendous convenience, enabling its owner to scurry at will about cab-ridden Paris free of comment. But it could not be left standing in public places at odd hours, or for long, without attracting the interest of the police, and so was useless in the present emergency. Lanyard, however, entertained a shrewd suspicion that his plans might all miscarry and the command of a fast-travelling car soon prove essential to his salvation; and he cheerfully devoted a good half-hour to putting the motor in prime trim for the road.
With this accomplished—and the facts established through discreet interrogation of madame la concierge that no enquiries had been made for "Pierre Lamier," and that she had noticed no strange or otherwise questionable characters loitering in the neighbourhood of late—he was ready for his first real step toward rehabilitation….
It was past one in the morning when, with the girl on his arm, he issued forth into the dark and drowsy rue des Acacias and, moving swiftly, crossed the avenue de la Grande Armée. Thereafter, avoiding main-travelled highways, they struck southward through tangled side streets to aristocratic Passy, skirted the boulevards of the fortifications, and approached the private park of La Muette.
The hôtel particulier of that wealthy and amiable eccentric, Madame Hélène Omber, was a souvenir of those days when Passy had been suburban. A survival of the Revolution, a vast, dour pile that had known few changes since the days of its construction, it occupied a large, unkempt park, irregularly triangular in shape, bounded by two streets and an avenue, and rendered private by high walls crowned with broken glass. Carriage gates opened on the avenue, guarded by a porter's lodge; while of three posterns that pierced the walls on the side streets, one only was in general use by the servants of the establishment; the other two were presumed to be permanently sealed.
Lanyard, however, knew better.
When they had turned off from the avenue, he slackened pace and moved at caution, examining the prospect narrowly.
On the one hand rose the wall of the park, topped by naked, soughing limbs of neglected trees; on the other, across the way, a block of tall old dwellings, withdrawn behind jealous garden walls, showed stupid, sleepy faces and lightless eyes.
Within the perspective of the street but three shapes stirred; Lanyard and the girl in the shadow of the wall, and a disconsolate, misprized cat that promptly decamped like a terror-stricken ghost.
Overhead the sky was breaking and showing ebon patches and infrequent stars through a wind-harried wrack of cloud. The night had grown sensibly colder, and noisy with the rushing sweep of a new-sprung wind.
Several yards from the postern-gate, Lanyard paused definitely, and spoke for the first time in many minutes; for the nature of their errand had oppressed the spirits of both and enjoined an unnatural silence, ever since their departure from the rue des Acacias.
"This is where we stop," he said, with a jerk of his head toward the wall; "but it's not too late—"
"For what?" the girl asked quickly.
"I promised you no danger; but now I've thought it over, I can't promise that: there's always danger. And I'm afraid for you. It's not yet too late for you to turn back and wait for me in a safer place."
"You asked me to accompany you for a special purpose," she argued; "you begged me to come with you, in fact…. Now that I have agreed and come this far, I don't mean to turn back without good reason."
His gesture indicated uneasy acquiescence. "I should never have asked this of you. I think I must have been a little mad. If anything should come of this to injure you…!"
"If you mean to do what you promised—"
"Do you doubt my sincerity?"
"It was your own suggestion that you leave me no excuse for doubt…"
Without further remonstrance, if with a mind beset with misgivings, he led on to the gate—a blank door of wood, painted a dark green, deeply recessed in the wall.
In proof of his assertion that he had long since made every preparation to attack the premises, Lanyard had a key ready and in the lock almost before they reached it.
And the door swung back easily and noiselessly as though on well-greased hinges. As silently it shut them in.
They stood upon a weed-grown gravel path, hedged about with thick masses of shrubbery; but the park was as black as a pocket; and the heavy effluvia of wet mould, decaying weeds and rotting leaves that choked the air, seemed only to render the murk still more opaque.
But Lanyard evidently knew his way blindfold: though motives of prudence made him refrain from using his flash-lamp, he betrayed not the least incertitude in his actions.
Never once at loss for the right turning, he piloted the girl swiftly through a bewildering black labyrinth of paths, lawns and thickets….
In due course he pulled up, and she discovered that they had come out upon a clear space of lawn, close beside the featureless, looming bulk of a dark and silent building.
An admonitory grasp tightened upon her fingers, and she caught his singularly penetrating yet guarded whisper:
"This is the back of the house—the service-entrance. From this door a broad path runs straight to the main service gateway; you can't mistake it; and the gate itself has a spring lock, easy enough to open from the inside. Remember this in event of trouble. We might become separated in the darkness and confusion…."
Gently returning the pressure, "I understand," she said in a whisper.
Immediately he drew her on to the house, pausing but momentarily before a wide doorway; one half of which promptly swung open, and as soon as they had passed through, closed with no perceptible jar or click. And then Lanyard's flash-lamp was lancing the gloom on every hand, swiftly raking the bounds of a large, panelled servants' hall, until it picked out the foot of a flight of steps at the farther end. To this they moved stealthily over a tiled flooring.
The ascent of the staircase was accomplished, however, only with infinite care, Lanyard testing each rise before trusting it with his weight or the girl's. Twice he bade her skip one step lest the complaints of the ancient woodwork betray them. In spite of all this, no less than three hideous squeals were evoked before they gained the top; each indicating a pause and wait of several breathless seconds.
But it would seem that such servants as had been left in the house, in the absence of its chatelaine, either slept soundly or were accustomed to the midnight concert of those age-old timbers; and without mischance, at length, they entered the main reception-hall, revealed by the dancing spot-light as a room of noble proportions furnished with sombre magnificence.
Here the girl was left alone for a few minutes, while Lanyard darted above-stairs for a review of the state bedchambers and servants' quarters.
With a sensation of being crushed and suffocated by the encompassing dark mystery, she nerved herself against a protracted vigil. The obscurity on every hand seemed alive with stealthy footfalls, whisperings, murmurings, the passage of shrouded shapes of silence and of menace. Her eyes ached, her throat and temples throbbed, her skin crept, her scalp tingled. She seemed to hear a thousand different noises of alarm. The only sounds she did not hear were those—if any—that accompanied Lanyard's departure and return. Had he not been thoughtful enough, when a few feet distant, to give warning with the light, she might well have greeted with a cry of fright the consciousness of a presence near her: so silently he moved about. As it was, she was startled, apprehensive of some misadventure, to find him back so soon; for he hadn't been gone three minutes.
"It's quite all right," he announced in hushed accents—no longer whispering. "There are just five people in the house aside from ourselves—all servants, asleep in the rear wing. We've got a clear field—if no excuse for taking foolish chances! However, we'll be finished and off again in less than ten minutes. This way."
That way led to a huge and gloomy library at one extreme of a chain of great salons, a veritable treasure-gallery of exquisite furnishings and authentic old masters. As they moved slowly through these chambers Lanyard kept his flash-lamp busy; involuntarily, now and again, he checked the girl before some splendid canvas or extraordinary antique.
"I've always meant to happen in some day with a moving-van and loot this place properly!" he confessed with a little affected sigh. "Considered from the viewpoint of an expert practitioner in my—ah—late profession, it's a sin and a shame to let all this go neglected, when it's so poorly guarded. The old lady—Madame Omber, you know—has all the money there is, approximately, and when she dies all these beautiful things go to the Louvre; for she's without kith or kin."
"But how did she manage to accumulate them all?" the girl wondered. "It's the work of generations of passionate collectors," he explained. "The late Monsieur Omber was the last of his dynasty; he and his forebears brought together the paintings and the furniture; madame added the Orientals gathered together by her first husband, and her own collection of antique jewellery and precious stones—herparticular fad…."
As he spoke the light of the flash-lamp was blotted out. An instant later the girl heard a little clashing noise, of curtain rings sliding along a pole; and this was thrice repeated.
Then, following another brief pause, a switch clicked; and streaming from the hood of a portable desk-lamp, a pool of light flooded the heart of a vast place of shadows, an apartment whose doors and windows alike were cloaked with heavy draperies that hung from floor to ceiling in long and shining folds. Immense black bookcases lined the walls, their shelves crowded with volumes in rich bindings; from their tops pallid marble masks peered down inquisitively, leering and scowling at the intruders. A huge mantelpiece of carved marble, supporting a great, dark mirror, occupied the best of one wall, beneath it a wide, deep fireplace yawned, partly shielded by a screen of wrought brass and crystal. In the middle of the room stood a library table of mahogany; huge leather chairs and couches encumbered the remainder of its space. And the corner to the right of the fireplace was shut off by a high Japanese screen of cinnabar and gold.
To this Lanyard moved confidently, carrying the lamp. Placing it on the floor, he grasped one wing of the screen with both hands, and at cost of considerable effort swung it aside, uncovering the face of a huge, old-style safe built into the wall.
For several seconds—but not for many—Lanyard studied this problem intently, standing quite motionless, his head lowered and thrust forward, hands resting on his hips. Then turning, he nodded an invitation to draw nearer.
"My last job," he said with a smile oddly lighted by the lamp at his feet—"and my easiest, I fancy. Sorry, too, for I'd rather have liked to show off a bit. But this old-fashioned tin bank gives no excuse for spectacular methods!"
"But," the girl objected, "You've brought no tools!"
"Oh, but I have!" And fumbling in a pocket, Lanyard produced a pencil."Behold!" he laughed, brandishing it.
She knitted thoughtful brows: "I don't understand."
"All I need—except this."
Crossing to the desk, he found a sheet of note-paper and, folding it, returned.
"Now," he said, "give me five minutes…."
Kneeling, he gave the combination-knob a smart preliminary twirl, then rested a shoulder against the sheet of painted iron, his cheek to its smooth, cold cheek, his ear close beside the dial; and with the practised fingers of a master locksmith began to manipulate the knob.
Gently, tirelessly, to and fro he twisted, turned, raced, and checked the combination, caressing it, humouring it, wheedling it, inexorably questioning it in the dumb language his fingers spoke so deftly. And in his ear the click and whir and thump of shifting wards and tumblers murmured articulate response in the terms of their cryptic code.
Now and again, releasing the knob and sitting back on his heels, he would bend intent scrutiny to the dial; note the position of the combination, and with the pencil jot memoranda on the paper. This happened perhaps a dozen times, at intervals of irregular duration.
He worked diligently, in a phase of concentration that apparently excluded from his consciousness the near proximity of the girl, who stood—or rather stooped, half-kneeling—less than a pace from his shoulder, watching the process with interest hardly less keen than his own.
Yet when one faint, odd sound broke the slumberous silence of the salons, instantly he swung around and stood erect in a single movement, gaze to the curtains.
But it had only been a premonitory rumble in the throat of a tall old clock about to strike in the room beyond. And as its sonorous chimes heralded two deep-toned strokes, Lanyard laughed quietly, intimately, to the girl's startled eyes, and sank back before the safe.
And now his task was nearly finished. Within another minute he sat back with face aglow, uttered a hushed exclamation of satisfaction, studied his memoranda for a space, then swiftly and with assured movements threw the knob and dial into the several positions of the combination, grasped the lever-handle, turned it smartly, and swung the door wide open.
"Simple, eh?" he chuckled, with a glance aside to the girl's eager face, bewitchingly flushed and shadowed by the lamp's up-thrown glow—"when one knows the trick, of course! And now … if one were not an honest man!"
A wave of his hand indicated the pigeonholes with which the body of the safe was fitted: wide spaces and deep, stored tight with an extraordinary array of leather jewel-cases, packets of stout paper bound with tape and sealed, and boxes of wood and pasteboard of every shape and size.
"They were only her finest pieces, her personal jewels, that Madame Omber took with her to England," he explained; "she's mad about them … never separated from them…. Perhaps the finest collection in the world, for size and purity of water…. She had the heart to leave these—all this!"
Lifting a hand he chose at random, dislodged two leather cases, placed them on the floor, and with a blade of his pen-knife forced their fastenings.
From the first the light smote radiance in blinding, coruscant welter.Here was nothing but diamond jewellery, mostly in antique settings.
He took up a piece and offered it to the girl. She drew back her hand involuntarily.
"No!" she protested in a whisper of fright.
"But just look!" he urged. "There's no danger … and you'll never see the like of this again!"
Stubbornly she withheld her hand. "No, no!" she pleaded. "I—I'd rather not touch it. Put it back. Let's hurry. I—I'm frightened."
He shrugged and replaced the jewel; then yielded again to impulse of curiosity and lifted the lid of the second case.
It contained nothing but pieces set with coloured stones of the first order—emeralds, amethysts, sapphires, rubies, topaz, garnets, lapis-lazuli, jacinthes, jades, fashioned by master-craftsmen into rings, bracelets, chains, brooches, lockets, necklaces, of exquisite design: the whole thrown heedlessly together, without order or care.
For a moment the adventurer stared down soberly at this priceless hoard, his eyes narrowing, his breathing perceptibly quickened. Then with a slow gesture, he reclosed the case, took from his pocket that other which he had brought from London, opened it, and held it aside beneath the light, for the girl's inspection.
He looked not once either at its contents or at her, fearing lest his countenance betray the truth, that he had not yet succeeded completely in exorcising that mutinous and rebellious spirit, the Lone Wolf, from the tenement over which it had so long held sway; and content with the sound of her quick, startled sigh of amaze that what she now beheld could so marvellously outshine what had been disclosed by the other boxes, he withdrew it, shut it, found it a place in the safe, and without pause closed the door, shot the bolts, and twirled the dial until the tumblers fairly sang.
One final twist of the lever-handle convincing him that the combination was effectively dislocated, he rose, picked up the lamp, replaced it on the desk with scrupulous care to leave no sign that it had been moved, and looked round to the girl.
She was where he had left her, a small, tense, vibrant figure among the shadows, her eyes dark pools of wonder in a face of blazing pallor.
With a high head and his shoulders well back he made a gesture signifying more eloquently than any words: "All that is ended!"
"And now…?" she asked breathlessly.
"Now for our get-away," he replied with assumed lightness. "Before dawn we must be out of Paris…. Two minutes, while I straighten this place up and leave it as I found it."
He moved back to the safe, restored the wing of the screen to the spot from which he had moved it, and after an instant's close examination of the rug, began to explore his pockets.
"What are you looking for?" the girl enquired.
"My memoranda of the combination—"
"I have it." She indicated its place in a pocket of her coat. "You left it on the floor, and I was afraid you might forget—"
"No fear!" he laughed. "No"—as she offered him the folded paper—"keep it and destroy it, once we're out of this. Now those portières…"
Extinguishing the desk-light, he turned attention to the draperies at doors and windows….
Within five minutes, they were once more in the silent streets of Passy.
They had to walk as far as the Trocadéro before Lanyard found a fiacre, which he later dismissed at the corner in the Faubourg St. Germain.
Another brief walk brought them to a gate in the garden wall of a residence at the junction of two quiet streets.
"This, I think, ends our Parisian wanderings," Lanyard announced. "If you'll be good enough to keep an eye out for busybodies—and yourself as inconspicuous as possible in this doorway…"
And he walked back to the curb, measuring the wall with his eye.
"What are you going to do?"
He responded by doing it so swiftly that she gasped with surprise: pausing momentarily within a yard of the wall, he gathered himself together, shot lithely into the air, caught the top curbing with both hands, and…
She heard the soft thud of his feet on the earth of the enclosure; the latch grated behind her; the door opened.
"For the last time," Lanyard laughed quietly, "permit me to invite you to break the law by committing an act of trespass!"
Securing the door, he led her to a garden bench secluded amid conventional shrubbery.
"If you'll wait here," he suggested—"well, it will be best. I'll be back as soon as possible, though I may be detained some time. Still, inasmuch as I'm about to break into this hôtel, my motives, which are most commendable, may be misinterpreted, and I'd rather you'd stop here, with the street at hand. If you hear a noise like trouble, you've only to unlatch the gate…. But let's hope my purely benevolent intentions toward the French Republic won't be misconstrued!"
"I'll wait," she assured him bravely; "but won't you tell me—?"
With a gesture, he indicated the mansion back of the garden.
"I'm going to break in there to pay an early morning call and impart some interesting information to a person of considerable consequence—nobody less, in fact, than Monsieur Ducroy."
"And who is that?"
"The present Minister of War…. We haven't as yet the pleasure of each other's acquaintance; still, I think he won't be sorry to see me…. In brief, I mean to make him a present of the Huysman plans and bargain for our safe-conduct from France."
Impulsively she offered her hand and, when he, surprised, somewhat diffidently took it, "Be careful!" she whispered brokenly, her pale sweet face upturned to his. "Oh, do be careful! I am afraid for you…."
And for a little the temptation to take her in his arms was stronger than any he had ever known….
But remembering his stipulated year of probation, he released her hand with an incoherent mumble, turned, and disappeared in the direction of the house.
Established behind his splendid mahogany desk in his office at the Ministère de la Guerre, or moving majestically abroad attired in frock coat and glossy topper, or lending the dignity of his presence to some formal ceremony in that beautiful uniform which appertained unto his office, Monsieur Hector Ducroy cut an imposing figure.
Abed … it was sadly otherwise.
Lanyard switched on the bedside light, turning it so that it struck full upon the face of the sleeper; and as he sat down, smiled.
The Minister of War lay upon his back, his distinguished corpulence severely dislocating the chaste simplicity of the bed-clothing. Athwart his shelving chest, fat hands were folded in a gesture affectingly naïve. His face was red, a noble high-light shone upon the promontory of his bald pate, his mouth was open. To the best of his unconscious ability he was giving a protracted imitation of a dog-fight; and he was really exhibiting sublime virtuosity: one readily distinguished individual howls, growls, yelps, against an undertone of blended voices of excited non-combatants…
As suddenly as though some one, wearying of the entertainment, had lifted the needle from that record, it was discontinued. The Minister of War stirred uneasily in his sleep, muttered a naughty word, opened one eye, scowled, opened the other.
He blinked furiously, half-blinded but still able to make out the disconcerting silhouette of a man seated just beyond the glare: a quiet presence that moved not but eyed him steadfastly; an apparition the more arresting because of its very immobility.
Rapidly the face of the Minister of War lost several shades of purple. He moistened his lips nervously with a thick, dry tongue, and convulsively he clutched the bed-clothing high and tight about his neck, as though labouring under the erroneous impression that the sanctity of his person was threatened.
"What do you want, monsieur?" he stuttered in a still, small voice which he would have been the last to acknowledge his own.
"I desire to discuss a matter of business with monsieur," replied the intruder after a small pause. "If you will be good enough to calm yourself—"
"I am perfectly calm—"
But here the Minister of War verified with one swift glance an earlier impression, to the effect that the trespasser was holding something that shone with metallic lustre; and his soul began to curl up round the edges.
"There are eighteen hundred francs in my pocketbook—about," he managed to articulate. "My watch is on the stand here. You will find the family plate in the dining-room safe, behind the buffet—the key is on my ring—and the jewels of madame my wife are in a small strong-box beneath the head of her bed. The combination—"
"Pardon: monsieur labours under a misapprehension," the housebreaker interposed drily. "Had one desired these valuables, one would readily have taken them without going to the trouble of disturbing the repose of monsieur…. I have, however, already mentioned the nature of my errand."
"Eh?" demanded the Minister of War. "What is that? But give me of your mercy one chance to explain! I have never wittingly harmed you, monsieur, and if I have done so without my knowledge, rest assured you have but to petition me through the proper channels and I will be only too glad to make amends!"
"Stillyou do not listen!" the other insisted. "Come, Monsieur Ducroy—calm yourself. I have not robbed you, because I have no wish to rob you. I have not harmed you, for I have no wish to harm you. Nor have I any wish other than to lay before you, as representing Government, a certain matter of State business."
There was silence while the Minister of War permitted this exhortation to sink in. Then, apparently reassured, he sat up in bed and eyed his untimely visitor with a glare little short of truculent.
"Eh? What's that?" he demanded. "Business? What sort of business? If you wish to submit to my consideration any matter of business, how is it you break into my home at dead of night and rouse me in this brutal fashion"—here his voice faltered—"with a lethal weapon pointed at my head?"
"Monsieur will admit he speaks under an error," returned the burglar. "I have yet to point this pistol at him. I should be very sorry to feel obliged to do so. I display it, in fact, simply that monsieur may not forget himself and attempt to summon servants in his resentment of this (I admit) unusual method of introducing one's self to his attention. When we understand each other better there will be no need for such precautions, and then I shall put my pistol away, so that the sight of it may no longer annoy monsieur."
"It is true, I do not understand you," grumbled the Minister of War."Why—if your errand be peaceable—break into my house?"
"Because it was urgently necessary to see monsieur instantly. Monsieur will reflect upon the reception one would receive did one ring the front door-bell and demand audience at three o'clock in the morning!"
"Well …" Monsieur Ducroy conceded dubiously. Then, on reflection, he iterated the monosyllable testily: "Well! What is it you want, then?"
"I can best explain by asking monsieur to examine—what I have to show him."
With this Lanyard dropped the pistol into his coat-pocket, from another produced a gold cigarette-case, and from the store of this last with meticulous care selected a single cigarette.
Regarding the Minister of War in a mystifying manner, he began to roll the cigarette briskly between his palms. A small shower of tobacco sifted to the floor: the rice-paper cracked and came away; and with the bland smile and gesture of a professional conjurer, Lanyard exhibited a small cylinder of stiff paper between his thumb and index-finger.
Goggling resentfully, Monsieur Ducroy spluttered:
"Eh—what impudence is this?"
His smile unchanged, Lanyard bent forward and silently dropped the cylinder into the Frenchman's hand. At the same time he offered him a pocket magnifying-glass. "What is this?" Ducroy persisted stupidly. "What—what—!"
"If monsieur will be good enough to unroll the papers and examine them with the aid of this glass—"
With a wondering grunt, the other complied, unrolling several small sheets of photographer's printing-out paper, to which several extraordinarily complicated and minute designs had been transferred—strongly resembling laborious efforts to conventionalize a spider's web.
But no sooner had Monsieur Ducroy viewed these through the glass, than he started violently, uttered an excited exclamation, and subjected them to an examination both prolonged and exacting.
"Monsieur is, no doubt, now satisfied?" Lanyard enquired when his patience would endure no longer.
"These are genuine?" the Minister of War demanded sharply, without looking up.
"Monsieur can readily discern notations made upon the drawings by the inventor, Georges Huysman, in his own hand. Furthermore, each plan has been marked in the lower left-hand corner with the word 'accepted' followed by the initials of the German Minister of War. I think this establishes beyond dispute the authenticity of these photographs of the plan for Huysman's invention."
"Yes," the Minister of War agreed breathlessly. "You have the negatives from which these prints were made?"
"Here," Lanyard said, indicating a second cigarette.
And then, with a movement so leisurely and careless that his purpose was accomplished before the other in his preoccupation was aware of it, the adventurer leaned forward and swept up the prints from the counterpane in front of Monsieur Ducroy.
"Here!" the Frenchman exclaimed. "Why do you do that?"
"Monsieur no longer questions their authenticity?"
"I grant you that."
"Then I return to myself these prints, pending negotiations for their transfer to France."
"How did you come by them?" demanded Monsieur Ducroy, after a moment's thought.
"Need monsieur ask? Is France so ill-served by her spies that you do not already know of the misfortune one Captain Ekstrom recently suffered in London?"
Ducroy shook his head. Lanyard received this indication with impatience. It seemed hardly possible that the French Minister of War could be either so stupid or so ignorant….
But with a patient shrug, he proceeded to elucidate.
"Captain Ekstrom," he said, "but recently succeeded in photographing these plans and took them to London to sell to the English. Unfortunately for himself—unhappily for perfidious Albion!—Captain Ekstrom fell in with me and mistook me for Downing Street's representative. And here are the plans."
"You are—the Lone Wolf—then?"
"I am, as far as concerns you, monsieur, merely the person in possession of these plans, who offers them through you, to France, for a price."
"But why introduce yourself to me in this extraordinary fashion, for a transaction for which the customary channels—with which you must be familiar—are entirely adequate?"
"Simply because Ekstrom has followed me to Paris," Lanyard explained indulgently. "Did I venture to approach you in the usual way, my chances of rounding out a useful life thereafter would be practically nil. Furthermore, my circumstances are such that it has become necessary for me to leave France immediately—without an hour's delay—also secretly; else I might as well remain here to be butchered…. Now you command the only means I know of, to accomplish my purpose. And that is the price, the only price, you will have to pay me for these plans."
"I don't understand you."
"It is on schedule, is it not, that Captain Vauquelin of the Aviation Corps is to attempt a non-stop flight from Paris to London this morning, with two passengers, in a new Parrott biplane?"
"That is so…. Well?"
"I must be one of those passengers; and I have a companion, a young lady, who will take the place of the other."
"It isn't possible, monsieur. Those arrangements are already fixed."
"You will countermand them."
"There is no time—"
"You can get into telephonic communication with Port Aviation in two minutes."
"But the passengers have been promised—"
"You will disappoint them."
"The start is to be made in the first flush of daylight. How could you reach Port Aviation in time?"
"In your motor-car, monsieur."
"It cannot be done."
"It must! If the start must be delayed till we arrive, you will give orders that it shall be so delayed."
For a minute the Minister of War hesitated; then he shook his head definitely.
"The difficulties are insuperable—"
"There is no such thing, monsieur."
"I am sorry: it can't be done."
"That is your answer?"
"It is regrettable, monsieur…"
"Very well!" Lanyard bent forward again, took a match from the stand on the bedside table, and struck it. Very calmly he advanced the flame toward the cigarette containing the roll of inflammable films.
"Monsieur!" Ducroy cried in horror. "What are you doing?"
Lanyard favoured him with a look of surprise.
"I am about to destroy these films and prints."
"You must never do that!"
"Why not? They are mine, to do with as I like. If I cannot dispose of them at my price, I shall destroy them!"
"But—my God!—what you demand is impossible! Stay, monsieur! Think what your action means to France!"
"I have already thought of that. Now I must think of myself."
"But—one moment!"
Ducroy sat up in bed and dangled hairy fat legs over the side.
"But one moment only, monsieur. Don't make me waste your matches!"
"Monsieur, it shall be as you desire, if it lies in my power to accomplish it."
With this the Minister of War stood up and made for the telephone, in his agitation forgetful of dressing-gown and slippers.
"You must accomplish it, Monsieur Ducroy," Lanyard advised him gravely, puffing out the flame; "for if you fail, you make yourself the instrument of my death. Here are the plans."
"You trust them to me?" Ducroy asked in astonishment.
"But naturally: that makes it an affair of your honour," Lanyard explained suavely.
With a gesture of graceful capitulation the Frenchman accepted the little roll of film.
"Permit me," he said, "to acknowledge the honour of monsieur's confidence!"
Lanyard bowed low: "One knows with whom one deals, monsieur!… And now, if you will be good enough to excuse me…."
He turned to the door.
"But—eh—where are you going?" Ducroy demanded.
"Mademoiselle," Lanyard said, pausing on the threshold—"that is, the young lady who is to accompany me—is waiting anxiously in the garden, out yonder. I go to find and reassure her and—with your permission—to bring her in to the library, where we will await monsieur when he has finished telephoning and—ah—repaired the deficiencies in his attire; which one trusts he will forgive one's mentioning!"
He bowed again, impudently, gaily, and—when the Minister of War looked up again sheepishly from contemplation of his naked shanks—had vanished.
In high feather Lanyard made his way to a door at the rear of the house which gave upon the garden—in his new social status of Governmental protégé disdaining any such a commonplace avenue as that conservatory window whose fastenings he had forced on entering. And boldly unbolting the door, he ran out into the night, to rejoin his beloved, like a man waking to new life.
But she was no more there: the bench was vacant, the garden deserted, the gateway yawning on the street.
With a low, stifled cry, Lanyard turned from the bench and stumbled out to the junction of the cross-street. But nowhere in their several perspectives could he see anything that moved.
After some time he returned to the garden and quartered it with the thoroughness of a pointer beating a covert. But he did this hopelessly, bitterly aware that the outcome would be precisely what it eventually was, that is to say, nothing….
He was kneeling beside the bench—scrutinizing the turf with microscopic attention by aid of his flash-lamp, seeking some sign of struggle to prove she had not left him willingly, and finding none—when a voice brought him momentarily out of his distraction.
He looked up wildly, to discover Ducroy standing over him, his stout person chastely swathed in a quilted dressing-gown and trousers, his expression one of stupefaction.
"Well, monsieur—well?" the Minister of War demanded irritably."What—I repeat—what are you doing there?"
Lanyard essayed response, choked up, and gulped. He rose and stood swaying, showing a stricken face.
"Eh?" Ducroy insisted with an accent of exasperation. "Why do you stand glaring at me like that—eh? Come, monsieur: what ails you? I have arranged everything, I say. Where is mademoiselle?"
Lanyard made a broken gesture.
"Gone!" he muttered forlornly.
Instantly the countenance of the stout Frenchman was lightened with a gleam of eager interest—inveterate romantic that he was!—and he stepped nearer, peering closely into the face of the adventurer.
"Gone?" he echoed. "Mademoiselle? Your sweetheart, eh?"
Lanyard assented with a disconsolate nod and sigh. Impatiently Ducroy caught him by the sleeve.
"Come!" he insisted, tugging—"but come at once into the house. Now, monsieur—now at length you enlist all one's sympathies! Come, I say! Is it your desire that I catch my death of cold?"
Indifferently Lanyard suffered himself to be led away.
He was, indeed, barely conscious of what was happening. All his being was possessed by the thought that she had forsaken him. And he could well guess why: impossible for such an one as she to contemplate without a shudder association with the man who had been what he had been! Infatuate!—to have dreamed that she would tolerate the devotion of a criminal, that she could ever forget his identity with the Lone Wolf. Inevitably—soon or late—she must have fled that ignominious thought in dread and horror, daring whatever consequences to escape and forget both it and him. And better now, perhaps, than later….
He found no reason to believe she had left him other than voluntarily, or that their adventures since the escape from the impasse Stanislas had been attended upon by spies of the Pack. He could have sworn they hadn't been followed either to or from the rue des Acacias; their way had been too long and purposely too roundabout, his vigilance too lively, for any sort of surveillance to have been practised without his remarking some indication thereof, at one time or another.
On the other hand (he told himself) there was every reason to believe she hadn't left him to go back to Bannon; concerning whom she had expressed herself too forcibly to excuse a surmise that she had preferred his protection to the Lone Wolf's.
Reasoning thus, he admitted, one couldn't blame her. He could readily see how, illuded at first by a certain romantic glamour, she had not, until left to herself in the garden, come to clear perception of the fact that she was casting her lot with a common criminal's. Then, horror overmastering her of a sudden she had fled—wildly, blindly, he didn't doubt. But whither? He looked in vain for her at their agreed rendezvous, the Sacré Coeur. She had neither money nor friends in Paris.
True: she had mentioned some personal jewellery she planned to hypothecate. Her first move, then, would be to seek the mont-de-piété—not to force himself again upon her, but to follow at a distance and ward off interference on Bannon's part.
The Government pawn-shop had its invitation for Lanyard himself: he was there before the doors were open for the day; and fortified by loans negotiated on his watch, cigarette-case, and a ring or two, retired to a café commanding a view of the entrance on the rue des Blancs-Manteaux, and settled himself against a day-long vigil.
It wasn't easy; drowsiness buzzed in his brain and weighted his eyelids; now and again, involuntarily, he nodded over his glass of black coffee. And when evening came and the mont-de-piété closed for the night, he rose and stumbled off, wondering if possibly he had napped a little without his knowledge and so missed her visit.
Engaging obscure lodgings close by the rue des Acacias, he slept till nearly noon of the following day, then rose to put into execution a design which had sprung full-winged from his brain at the instant of wakening.
He had not only his car but a chauffeur's license of long standing in the name of Pierre Lamier—was free, in short, to range at will the streets of Paris. And when he had levied on the stock of a second-hand clothing shop and a chemist's, he felt tolerably satisfied it would need sharp eyes—whether the Pack's or the Préfecture's—to identify "Pierre Lamier" with either Michael Lanyard or the Lone Wolf.
His face, ears and neck he stained a weather-beaten brown, a discreet application of rouge along his cheekbones enhancing the effect of daily exposure to the winter winds and rains of Paris; and he gave his hands an even darker shade, with the added verisimilitude of finger-nails inked into permanent mourning. Also, he refrained from shaving: a stubble of two days' neglect bristled upon his chin and jowls. A rusty brown ulster with cap to match, shoddy trousers boasting conspicuous stripes of leaden colour, and patched boots completed the disguise.
Monsieur and madame of the conciergerie he deceived with a yarn of selling his all to purchase the motor-car and embark in business for himself; and with their blessing, sallied forth to scout Paris diligently for sight or sign of the woman to whom his every heart-beat was dedicated.
By the close of the third day he was ready to concede that she had managed to escape without his aid.
And he began to suspect that Bannon had fled the town as well; for the most diligent enquiries failed to educe the least clue to the movements of the American following the fire at Troyon's.
As for Troyon's, it was now nothing more than a gaping excavation choked with ashes and charred timbers; and though still rumours of police interest in the origin of the fire persisted, nothing in the papers linked the name of Michael Lanyard with their activities. His disappearance and Lucy Shannon's seemed to be accepted as due to death in the holocaust; the fact that their bodies hadn't been recovered was no longer a matter for comment.
In short, Paris had already lost interest in the affair.
Even so, it seemed, had the Pack lost interest in the Lone Wolf; or else his disguise was impenetrable. Twice he saw De Morbihan "flânning" elegantly on the Boulevards, and once he passed close by Popinot; but neither noticed him.
Toward midnight of the third day, Lanyard, driving slowly westward on the boulevard de la Madeleine, noticed a limousine of familiar aspect round a corner half a block ahead and, drawing up in front of Viel's, discharge four passengers.
The first was Wertheimer; and at sight of his rather striking figure, decked out in evening apparel from Conduit street and Bond, Lanyard slackened speed.
Turning as he alighted, the Englishman offered his hand to a young woman. She jumped down to the sidewalk in radiant attire and a laughing temper.
Involuntarily Lanyard stopped his car; and one immediately to the rear, swerving out to escape collision, shot past, its driver cursing him freely; while a sergent de ville scowled darkly and uttered an imperative word.
He pulled himself together, somehow, and drove on.
The girl was entering the restaurant by way of the revolving door, Wertheimer in attendance; while De Morbihan, having alighted, was lending a solicitous arm to Bannon.
Quite automatically the adventurer drove on, rounded the Madeleine, and turned up the boulevard Malesherbes. Paris and all its brisk midnight traffic swung by without claiming a tithe of his interest: he was mainly conscious of lights that reeled dizzily round him like a multitude of malicious, mocking eyes….
At the junction with the boulevard Haussmann a second sergent de ville roused him with a warning about careless driving. He went more sanely thereafter, but bore a heart of utter misery; his eyes still wore a dazed expression, and now and again he shook his head impatiently as though to rid it of a swarm of tormenting thoughts.
So, it seemed, he had all along been her dupe; all the while that he had been ostentatiously shielding her from harm and diffidently discovering every evidence of devotion, she had been laughing in her sleeve and planning to return to the service she pretended to despise, with her report of a fool self-duped.
A great anger welled in his bosom.
Turning round, he made back to the boulevard de la Madeleine, and on one pretext and another contrived to haunt the neighbourhood of Viel's until the party reappeared, something after one o'clock.
It was plain that they had supped merrily; the girl seemed in the gayest humour, Wertheimer a bit exhilarated, De Morbihan much amused; even Bannon—bearing heavily on the Frenchman's arm—was chuckling contentedly. The party piled back into De Morbihan's limousine and was driven up the avenue des Champs Élysées, pausing at the Élysée Palace Hotel to drop Bannon and the girl—his daughter?—whoever she was!
Whither it went thereafter, Lanyard didn't trouble to ascertain. He drove morosely home and went to bed, though not to sleep for many hours: bitterness of disillusion ate like an acid in his heart.
But for all his anguish, he continued in an uncertain temper. He had turned his back on the craft of which he was acknowledged master—for a woman's sake; for nothing else (he argued) had he dedicated himself to poverty and honest effort; and what little privation he had already endured was hopelessly distasteful to him. The art of the Lone Wolf, his consummate cunning and subtlety, was still at his command; with only himself to think of, he was profoundly contemptuous of the antagonism of the Pack; while none knew better than he with what ease the riches of careless Paris might be diverted to his own pockets. A single step aside from the path he had chosen—and tomorrow night he might dine at the Ritz instead of in some sordid cochers' cabaret!
And since no one cared—sinceshehad betrayed his faith—what mattered?
Why not…?
Yet he could not come to a decision; the next day saw him obstinately, even a little stupidly, pursuing the course he had planned before his disheartening disillusionment.
Because his money was fast ebbing and motives of prudence alone—if none more worthy—forbade an attempt to replenish his pocketbook by revisiting the little rez-de-chaussée in the rue Roget and realizing on its treasures, he had determined to have a taximeter fitted to his car and ply for hire until time or chance should settle the question of his future.
Already, indeed, he had complied with the police regulations, and received permission to convert his voiture de remise into a taxicab; and leaving it before noon at the designated dépôt, he was told it would be ready for him at four with the "clock" installed. Returning at that hour, he learned that it couldn't be ready before six; and too bored and restless to while away two idle hours in a café, he wandered listlessly through the streets and boulevards—indifferent, in the black melancholy oppressing him, whether or not he were recognized—and eventually found himself turning from the rue St. Honoré through the place Vendôme to the rue de la Paix.
This was not wise, a perilous business, a course he had no right to pursue. And Lanyard knew it. None the less, he persisted.
It was past five o'clock—deep twilight beneath a cloudless sky—the life of that street of streets fluent at its swiftest. All that Paris knew of wealth and beauty, fashion and high estate, moved between the curbs. One needed the temper of a Stoic to maintain indifference to the allure of its pageant.
Trudging steadily, he of the rusty brown ulster all but touched shoulders with men who were all that he had been but a few days since—hale, hearty, well-fed, well-dressed symbols of prosperity—and with exquisite women, exquisitely gowned, extravagantly be-furred and be-jewelled, of glowing faces and eyes dark with mystery and promise: spirited creatures whose laughter was soft music, whose gesture was pride and arrogance.
One and all looked past, over, and through him, unaffectedly unaware that he existed.
The roadway, its paving worn as smooth as glass, and tonight by grace of frost no less hard, rang with a clatter of hoofs high and clear above the resonance of motors. A myriad lights filled the wide channel with diffused radiance. Two endless ranks of shop-windows, facing one another—across the tide, flaunted treasures that kings might pardonably have coveted—and would.
Before one corner window, Lanyard paused instinctively.
The shop was that of a famous jeweller. Separated from him by only the thickness of plate-glass was the wealth of princes. Looking beyond that display, his attention focussed on the interior of an immense safe, to which a dapper French salesman was restoring velvet-lined trays of valuables. Lanyard studied the intricate, ponderous mechanism of the safe-door with a thoughtful gaze not altogether innocent of sardonic bias. It wore all the grim appearance of a strong-box that, once locked, would prove impregnable to everything save acquaintance with the combination and the consent of the time-lock. But give the Lone Wolf twenty minutes alone with it, twenty minutes free from interruption—he, the one man living who could seduce a time-lock and leave it apparently inviolate!…
To one side of that window stood a mirror, set at an angle, and suddenly Lanyard caught its presentment of himself—a gaunt and hungry apparition, with a wolfish air he had never worn when rejoicing in his sobriquet, staring with eyes of predaceous lustre.
Alarmed and fearing lest some passer-by be struck by this betrayal, he turned and moved on hastily.
But his mind was poisoned by this brutal revelation of the wide, deep gulf that yawned between the Lone Wolf of yesterday and Pierre Lamier of today; between Michael Lanyard the debonnaire, the amateur of fine arts and fine clothing, the beau sabreur of gentlemen-cracksmen and that lean, worn, shabby and dispirited animal who had glared back at him from the jeweller's mirror.
He quickened his pace, with something of that same instinct of self-preservation that bids the dipsomaniac avert his eyes and hurry past the corner gin-mill, and turned blindly off into the rue Danou, toward the avenue de l'Opéra.
But this only made it worse for him, for he could not avoid recognition of the softly glowing windows of the Café de Paris that knew him so well, or forget the memory of its shining rich linen, its silver and crystal, its perfumed atmosphere and luxury of warmth and music and shaded lights, its cuisine that even Paris cannot duplicate.
And the truth came home to him, that he was hungry not with that brute appetite he had money enough in his pocket to satisfy, but with the lust of flesh-pots, for rare viands and old vintage wines, to know once more the snug embrace of a dress-coat and to breathe again the atmosphere of ease and station.
In sudden panic he darted across the avenue and hurried north, determined to tantalize himself no longer with sights and sounds so provocative and so disturbing.
Half-way across the boulevard des Capucines, to the east of the Opéra, he leapt for his life from a man-killing taxi, found himself temporarily marooned upon one of those isles of safety which Paris has christened "thank-Gods," and stood waiting for an opening in the congestion of traffic to permit passage to the farther sidewalk.
And presently the policeman in the middle of the boulevard signalled with his little white wand; the stream of east-bound vehicles checked and began to close up to the right of the crossing, upon which they encroached jealously; and a taxi on the outside, next the island, overshot the mark, pulled up sharply, and began to back into place. Before Lanyard could stir, its window was opposite him, and he was looking in, transfixed.
There was sufficient light to enable him to see clearly the face of the passenger—its pale oval and the darkness of eyes whose gaze clung to his with an effect of confused fascination….
She sat quite motionless until one white-gloved hand moved uncertainly toward her bosom.
That brought him to; unconsciously lifting his cap, he stepped back a pace and started to move on.
At this, she bent quickly forward and unlatched the door. It swung wide to him.
Hardly knowing what he was doing, he accepted the dumb invitation, stepped in, took the empty seat, and closed the door.
Almost at once the car moved on with a jerk, the girl sinking back into her corner with a suggestion of breathlessness, as though her effort to seem composed had been almost too much for her strength.
Her face, turned toward Lanyard, seemed wan in the half light, but immobile, expressionless; only her eyes were darkly quick with anticipation.
On his part, Lanyard felt himself hopelessly confounded, in the grasp of emotions that would scarce suffer him to speak. A great wonder obsessed him that she should have opened that door to him no less than that he should have entered through it. Dimly he understood that each had acted without premeditation; and asked himself, was she already regretting that momentary weakness.
"Why did you do that?" he heard himself demand abruptly, his voice harsh, strained, and unnatural.
She stiffened slightly, with a nervous movement of her shoulders.
"Because I saw you… I was surprised; I had hoped—believed—you had left Paris."
"Without you? Hardly!"
"But you must," she insisted—"youmustgo, as quickly as possible.It isn't safe—"
"I'm all right," he insisted—"able-bodied—in full possession of my senses!"
"But any moment you may be recognized—"
"In this rig? It isn't likely…. Not that I care."
She surveyed his costume curiously, perplexed.
"Why are you dressed that way? Is it a disguise?"
"A pretty good one. But in point of fact, it's the national livery of my present station in life."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Simply that, out of my old job, I've turned to the first resort of the incompetent: I'm driving a taxi."
"Isn't it awfully—risky?"
"You'd think so; but it isn't. Few people ever bother to look at a chauffeur. When they hail a taxi they're in a hurry, as a rule—preoccupied with business or pleasure. And then our uniforms are a disguise in themselves: to the public eye we look like so many Chinamen!"
"But you're mistaken: I knew you instantly, didn't I? And those others—they're as keen-witted as I—certainly. Oh, you should not have stopped on in Paris!"
"I couldn't go without knowing what had become of you."
"I was afraid of that," she confessed.
"Then why—?"
"Oh, I know what you're going to say! Why did I run away from you?" And then, since he said nothing, she continued unhappily: "I can't tell you… I mean, I don't know how to tell you!"
She kept her face averted, sat gazing blankly out of the window; but when he sat on, mute and unresponsive—in point of fact not knowing what to say—she turned to look at him, and the glare of a passing lamp showed her countenance profoundly distressed, mouth tense, brows knotted, eyes clouded with perplexity and appeal.
And of a sudden, seeing her so tormented and so piteous, his indignation ebbed, and with it all his doubts of her were dissipated; dimly he divined that something behind this dark fabric of mystery and inconsistency, no matter how inexplicable to him, excused all her apparent faithlessness and instability of character and purpose. He could not look upon this girl and hear her voice and believe that she was not at heart as sound and sweet, tender and loyal, as any that ever breathed.
A wave of tenderness and compassion brimmed his heart; he realized that he didn't matter, that his amour propre was of no account—that nothing mattered so long as she were spared one little pang of self-reproach.
He said, gently: "I wouldn't have you distress yourself on my account, Miss Shannon… I quite understand there must be things Ican'tunderstand—that you must have had your reasons for acting as you did."
"Yes," she said unevenly, but again with eyes averted—"I had; but they're not easy, they're impossible to explain—to you."
"Yet—when all's said and done—I've no right to exact any explanation."
"Ah, but how can you say that, remembering what we've been through together?"
"You owe me nothing," he insisted; "whereas I owe you everything, even unquestioning faith. Even though I fail, I have this to thank you for—this one not-ignoble impulse my life has known."
"You mustn't say that, you mustn't think it. I don't deserve it. You wouldn't say it—if you knew—"
"Perhaps I can guess enough to satisfy myself."
She gave him a swift, sidelong look of challenge, instinctively on the defensive.
"Why," she almost gasped—"what do you think—?"
"Does it matter what I think?"
"It does, to me: I wish to know!"
"Well," he conceded reluctantly, "I think that, when you had a chance to consider things calmly, waiting back there in the garden, you made up your mind it would be better to—to use your best judgment and—extricate yourself from an embarrassing position—"
"You think that!" she interrupted bitterly. "You think that, after you had confided in me; after you'd confessed—when I made you, led you on to it—that you cared for me; after you'd told me how much my faith meant to you—you think that, after all that, I deliberately abandoned you because I suddenly realized you had been the Lone Wolf—!"
"I'm sorry if I hurt you. But what can I think?"
"But you are wrong!" she protested vehemently—"quite, quite wrong! I ran away from myself—not from you—and with another motive, too, that I can't explain."
"You ran away from yourself—not from me?" he repeated, puzzled.
"Don't you understand? Why make it so hard for me? Why make me say outright what pains me so?"
"Oh, I beg of you—"
"But if you won't understand otherwise—I must tell you, I suppose." She checked, breathless, flushed, trembling. "You recall our talk after dinner, that night—how I asked what if you found out you'd been mistaken in me, that I had deceived you; and how I told you it would be impossible for me ever to marry you?"
"I remember."
"It was because of that," she said—"I ran away; because I hadn't been talking idly; because youweremistaken in me, because Iwasdeceiving you, because I could never marry you, and because—suddenly—I came to know that, if I didn't go then and there, I might never find the strength to leave you, and only suffering and unhappiness could come of it all. I had to go, as much for your sake as for my own."
"You mean me to understand, you found you were beginning to—to care a little for me?"
She made an effort to speak, but in the end answered only with a dumb inclination of her head.
"And ran away because love wasn't possible between us?"
Again she nodded silently.
"Because I had been a criminal, I presume!"