do," she answered, drawing him gently back to their old place.
"You mean about what Rachel Kynaston said that awful night, don't you?"

"More than that, alas!" he answered in a low tone. "Other people besides
Rachel Kynaston have had suspicions about me. I have been watched, and
while I was away, Falcon's Nest has been entered, and papers have been
taken away."

She was white with fear. This was Benjamin Levy's doing, and it was
through her. Ought she to tell him? She could not! She could not!

"But they do not--the papers, I mean--make it appear that----"

"Helen," he interrupted, with his face turned away from her, "it is best
that you should know the truth. Those papers reveal the story of a
bitter enmity between myself and Sir Geoffrey Kynaston. When you
consider that and the other things, you will see that I may at any
moment be arrested."

A spasm of pain passed across her face. At that moment her thoughts were
only concerned with his safety. The terrible suggestiveness of what he
had told her had very little real meaning for her then. Her one thought
was, could she buy those papers? If all her fortune could do it, it
should be given. Only let him never know, and let him be safe!

"Bernard," she whispered softly, "I am not afraid. It is very terrible,
but it cannot alter anything. Love cannot come and go at our bidding. It
is forever. Nothing can change that."

He stopped her lips with passionate kisses, and then he tried to tear
himself away. But she would not let him go. A touch of that complete
self-surrender which comes even to the proudest woman when she loves had
made her bold.

"Have I not told you, Bernard," she whispered, "that I will not let you
go?"

"Helen, you must," he said hoarsely. "Who knows but that to-morrow I may
stand in the dock, charged with that hideous crime?"

"If they will let me, I shall gladly stand by your side," she answered.

He turned away, and his shaking fingers hid his face from her.

"Oh, this is too much for a man to bear!" he moaned. "Helen, Helen,
there must be nothing of this between you and me."

"Nothing between you and me!" she repeated with a ring of gentle scorn
in her voice. "Bernard, do you know so little of women, after all? Do
you think that they can play at love in this give-and-take fashion?"

He did not answer. She stood up and passed one of her arms around his
neck, and with the other hand gently disengaged his fingers from before
his face.

"