e given me just the power I needed to
help you." She came up and with a quick impulsive gesture laid her two
hands on my arm. "Neil, Neil, my lover! In a few hours from now you
can have everything you want in the world. Everything, Neil--money,
freedom, love--" She broke off, panting slightly with her own
vehemence, and then drawing my face down to hers, kissed me again on
the lips.

I suppose I ought to have felt rather ashamed of myself, but I think
I was too interested in what she was going to say to worry much about
anything else.

"Tell me, Sonia," I said. "What am I to do? Can I trust your father
and McMurtrie?"

She let go my arm, and stepping back sat down on the edge of the small
table which I had been using as a writing-desk.

"Trust them!" she repeated half scornfully. "Yes, you can trust them
if you want to go on being cheated and robbed. Can't you see--can't
you guess the way they have been lying to you?"

"Of course I can," I said coolly; "but when one's between the Devil
and Dartmoor, I prefer the Devil every time. I don't enjoy being
cheated, but it's much more pleasant than being starved or flogged."

She leaned forward, holding the edge of the table with her hands.
"There's no need for either. As I've told you, in a few hours from
now we can be away from England with money enough to last us for our
lives. Do you know what your invention is worth? Do you know what use
they mean to make of it?"

"I imagine they hope to sell it," I answered. "It wouldn't be
difficult to find a customer."

"Difficult!" She lowered her voice to a quick eager whisper. "They
have got a customer. The best customer in Europe. A customer that will
pay anything in the world for such a secret as yours."

I gazed at her with a carefully assumed expression of amazement and
dawning intelligence.

"Good Lord, Sonia!" I said slowly; "do you mean--?"

She made an impatient movement with her hands. "Listen! I am going to
tell you everything. What's the good of you and I beating about
the bush?" She paused. "We are spies," she said quite simply,
"professional spies. Of course it sounds absurd and impossible to
you--an Englishman--but all the same it's the truth. You don't know
what sort of man Dr. McMurtrie is."

"I appear to be learning," I observed.

"He has been a friend of my father's for years. They were in Russia
together at one time--and then Paris, Vienna--oh, everywhere. It has
always been the same; in each coun