gaze. For the same reason she
hastened to speak to him in a tone of indifference, which she put on
without effort, as if she had grown adept in duplicity since sunrise.

"You have been over there again?"

"I have. I thought--but you had better know first that we have lost Wang
for good."

She repeated "For good?" as if she had not understood.

"For good or evil--I shouldn't know which if you were to ask me. He has
dismissed himself. He's gone."

"You expected him to go, though, didn't you?"

Heyst sat down on the other side of the table.

"Yes. I expected it as soon as I discovered that he had annexed my
revolver. He says he hasn't taken it. That's untrue of course. A
Chinaman would not see the sense of confessing under any circumstances.
To deny any charge is a principle of right conduct; but he hardly
expected to be believed. He was a little enigmatic at the last, Lena. He
startled me."

Heyst paused. The girl seemed absorbed in her own thoughts.

"He startled me," I repeated Heyst. She noted the anxiety in his tone,
and turned her head slightly to look at him across the table.

"It must have been something--to startle you," she said. In the depth
of her parted lips, like a ripe pomegranate, there was a gleam of white
teeth.

"It was only a single word--and some of his gestures. He had been making
a good deal of noise. I wonder we didn't wake you up. How soundly you
can sleep! I say, do you feel all right now?"

"As fresh as can be," she said, treating him to another deep gleam of
a smile. "I heard no noise, and I'm glad of it. The way he talks in his
harsh voice frightens me. I don't like all these foreign people."

"It was just before he went away--bolted out, I should say. He nodded
and pointed at the curtain to our room. He knew you were there, of
course. He seemed to think--he seemed to try to give me to understand
that you were in special--well, danger. You know how he talks."

She said nothing; she made no sound, only the faint tinge of colour
ebbed out of her cheek.

"Yes," Heyst went on. "He seemed to try to warn me. That must have been
it Did he imagine I had forgotten your existence? The only word he said
was 'two'. It sounded so, at least. Yes, 'two'--and that he didn't like
it."

"What does that mean?" she whispered.

"We know what the word two means, don't we, Lena? We are two. Never
were such a lonely two out of the world, my dear! He might have tried
to remind me that he himself h