t you'll kill
yourself, too."

"We'll chance it together, my murderous little friend."

The wind began to roar again as they rushed downward over a hill that
seemed endless. She clung to her seat and he hung to his wheel like
grim death; and, for one terrible instant, she almost lost
consciousness.

Then the terrific pace slackened; the car, running swiftly, was now
speeding over a macadam road; and Neeland laughed and cried in her
ear:

"Better light another of your hell's own cigarettes if you want your
friends to follow us!"

Slowing, he drove with one hand on the wheel.

"Look up there!" he said, pointing high at a dark hillside. "See their
lights? They're on the worst road in the Gayfield hills. We cut off
three miles this way."

Still driving with one hand, he looked at his watch, laughed
contentedly, and turned to her with the sudden and almost friendly
toleration born of success and a danger shared in common.

"That was rather a reckless bit of driving," he admitted. "Were you
frightened?"

"Ask yourself how you'd feel with a fool at the wheel."

"We're all fools at times," he retorted, laughing. "You were when you
shot at me. Suppose I'd been seized with panic. I might have turned
loose on you, too."

For a while she remained silent, then she looked at him curiously:

"Were you armed?"

"I carry an automatic pistol in my portfolio pocket."

She shrugged.

"You were a fool to come into that house without carrying it in your
hand."

"Where would you be now if I had done that?"

"Dead, I suppose," she said carelessly.... "What _are_ you going to do
with me?"

He was in excellent humour with himself; exhilaration and excitement
still possessed him, keyed him up.

"Fancy," he said, "a foreign embassy being mixed up in a plain case of
grand larceny!--robbing with attempt to murder! My dear but
bloodthirsty young lady, I can hardly comprehend it."

She remained silent, looking straight in front of her.

"You know," he said, "I'm rather glad you're not a common thief.
You've lots of pluck--plenty. You're as clever as a cobra. It isn't
every poisonous snake that is clever," he added, laughing.

"What do you intend to do with me?" she repeated coolly.

"I don't know. You are certainly an interesting companion. Maybe I'll
take you to New York with me. You see I'm beginning to like you."

She was silent.

He said:

"I never before met a real spy. I scarcely believed they existed in
tim