rom this access she more speedily recovered. "This is all very well,"
said she, nodding at him gravely, "but I am still in a most distressing
situation, from which, if you deny me your help, I shall find it
difficult indeed to free myself."

At this mention of help Challoner fell back to his original gloom.

"My sympathies are much engaged with you," he said, "and I should be
delighted, I am sure. But our position is most unusual; and
circumstances over which I have, I can assure you, no control, deprive
me of the power--the pleasure----Unless, indeed," he added, somewhat
brightening at the thought, "I were to recommend you to the care of the
police?"

She laid her hand upon his arm and looked hard into his eyes; and he saw
with wonder that, for the first time since the moment of their meeting,
every trace of colour had faded from her cheek.

"Do so," she said, "and--weigh my words well--you kill me as certainly
as with a knife."

"God bless me!" exclaimed Challoner.

"Oh," she cried, "I can see you disbelieve my story, and make light of
the perils that surround me; but who are you to judge? My family share
my apprehensions; they help me in secret; and you saw yourself by what
an emissary, and in what a place, they have chosen to supply me with the
funds for my escape. I admit that you are brave and clever, and have
impressed me most favourably; but how are you to prefer your opinion
before that of my uncle, an ex-minister of State, a man with the ear of
the Queen, and of a long political experience? If I am mad, is he? And
you must allow me, besides, a special claim upon your help. Strange as
you may think my story, you know that much of it is true; and if you who
heard the explosion, and saw the Mormon at Victoria, refuse to credit
and assist me, to whom am I to turn?"

"He gave you money then?" asked Challoner, who had been dwelling singly
on that fact.

"I begin to interest you," she cried. "But, frankly, you are condemned
to help me. If the service I had to ask of you were serious, were
suspicious, were even unusual, I should say no more. But what is it? To
take a pleasure trip (for which, if you will suffer me, I propose to
pay) and to carry from one lady to another a sum of money! What can be
more simple?"

"Is the sum," asked Challoner, "considerable?"

She produced a packet from her bosom; and observing that she had not yet
found time to make the count, tore open the cover and spread upon her
knees