at would keep you safe."

"It's lovely of you," he began.

"And I shall do it too," she cut in.

"Oh, very well," said Barraclough coldly.

Her arms went round his neck and drew his cheek to hers.

"Would you stop loving me if I did?"

"I couldn't stop loving you whatever happened."

"Oh, Tony, take me with you. I wouldn't mind then. I've promised to
share my life with you--aren't I good to share a single danger?"

"Much too good."

She released her hold and stood away.

"So it's as grave as all that," said she. "Very well, if you refuse I
shan't marry you."

"You don't mean that?"

"Give me a bible--I'll swear it."

"Isabel!"

"You have two alternatives. Take me with you or tell me where this
place is."

"What use would the knowledge be to you?"

"All the use. If they got you I know very well they'd never make you
speak. You--you wouldn't."

He nodded gravely at that.

"But I should. It 'ud give me the power to bail you out. Do you
understand now?"

"I understand I should be every sort of a coward if I told you on those
terms."

"Oh, you man--you man," she cried. "Well, you've the choice."

"To tell or lose you?"

"Yes."

In the silence that followed an electric bell rang sharply.

"There they are," he exclaimed.

"Be quick, I'm waiting," she said.

"Can't you accept my word that it's better you shouldn't know?"

"You've the choice," she repeated.

Anthony Barraclough looked round him desperately, then he spoke very
fast.

"If I tell you you'll do nothing--say nothing till eleven o'clock this
day three weeks?"

"I promise."

The words that followed rattled out like a hail of shrapnel.

"Brewster's Series nineteen. Map twenty-four. Square F. North
twenty-seven. West thirty-three."

"I'll write it down."

"No, no, you won't," he cried. "I've fulfilled my part of the bargain
and you've forgotten it already."

She fixed him with her clear blue eyes, square lidded and earnest.

"Brewster's Series nineteen. Map twenty-four. Square F. North
twenty-seven. West thirty-three," she said.

He looked at her in sheer amazement.

"You wonder! You absolute wonder!" he gasped.

"If I were dead I should remember that," she said. "It's stuck for
good." She touched her forehead, then quite suddenly her body went
limp and tilted against him. "Oh, but if only it were over," she
whispered huskily. "If only it were all--all over. Kiss me, please."

"Never fear,"