that we can be happy and not wretched, miserable beggars,
we--not you alone--but we two together must do what will give us money
to start all over again. And listen to this, dearest: it will be a thing
which will draw us so closely together that we'll be one in body and
soul forever and ever, in this world and the next."

"You almost frighten me," Dauntrey said.

"Don't be frightened," she implored, her mouth close to his. "If you're
frightened, you'll fail me--and then it's all over between us."

"All over between us!"

"Yes, because if you fail, you break your solemn promise, and you're not
the man I thought you were--not the man I can love. I'll go out of your
life and find some one who is stronger, because I've got too much love
in me to waste."

"What do you want me to do?"

"To find a plan, at once--to-morrow, after you come back--for us to get
Mary Grant's jewels and all the money you bring to her from Monte Carlo,
and then to go safely away--together, where we can be happy."

"Good God!" He broke loose from her clinging arms, and pushed her off.
"You want me to murder the girl!"

They faced one another in the dreary glimmer of the two candles. For an
instant neither spoke, but each could hear the other breathing in the
semi-darkness.

"What a horrible thought!" Eve flung herself upon him again and caught
his hands, which had been hot as they clasped hers but had suddenly
grown cold, as a stone is chilled when the sun leaves it in shadow. He
did not snatch his hands away, but they gave no answering pressure. He
bowed his head like a man who is very tired, having come to the end of
his strength.

"Have we sunk to this?" he groaned under his breath, yet Eve caught the
words.

"Wait! You've misunderstood me," she reassured him eagerly. "I don't
want you to--take her life. Only--we must have money, and those jewels
of hers--she doesn't need them. We do. And we're _meant_ to have them,
else why should we have been thrown in her way just at the right moment?
Why should we be now in this lonely house, no one knowing that we're
here? It's Destiny. I saw that when she spoke about the jewel-case.
Didn't you guess what was in my mind?"

"I was past guessing," Dauntrey said. "I had enough to think of without
putting problems to myself."

"It's lucky my brain kept awake. That was why I proposed driving here
instead of coming by train, where somebody might have seen us: that was
why I wouldn't call for the lug