and lowered his voice.

"Go away, Joe! Don't come here; never come here!" There was a quiver in
his voice. Anger or apprehension, or both, whatever his passion was, for
the moment it overwhelmed him, and as the Chinaman stood unmoved,
unmoving, at his commands, Harry turned sharp from the window and dashed
out of the room. Flora heard him running, running down the stairs. She
hung there breathless, waiting to see him meet the motionless figure;
but while she looked and waited that motionless figure suddenly took
life. It moved, it turned, it flitted, it mixed with shadows, became a
shadow; and then there was nothing there.

Nothing was there when Harry burst out of the garden door and stood
staring in the empty oval. How distracted, how violent he looked, balked
of his prey! He was stalking the garden, beating the bushes, walking up
and down. All at once he stopped and raised a white baffled face to her
window. She shrank away. _She_ was in peril of Harry now. He knew her no
longer innocent. She had held the ring against him in the face of the
fact he had told her it was stolen. And he must guess her motive. He
must suspect her now.

In her turn she ran, up and up a twisted side stair, shortest passage to
her own rooms. At least lock and key could keep her safe for the next
few hours. After that she must think of something else.

XX

FLIGHT

By five o'clock in the morning she was already moving softly to and fro,
so softly as not to rouse the sleeping Marrika. By seven her lightest
bag was packed, herself was bathed, brushed, dressed even to hat and
gloves, and standing at her window with all the listening alert look of
one in a waiting-room expecting a train. She was watching for the city
to begin to stir; watching for enough traffic below in the streets to
make her own movement there not too noticeable. Yet every moment she
waited she was in terror lest her fate should take violent form at last
and assail her in the moment of escape. She listened for a foot
ascending to her room with a message from Clara demanding an audience.
She listened for the peal of the electric bell under Harry's hasty
hand--Harry, arrived even at this unwarranted hour with Heaven knew what
representative of law to force the sapphire from her.

But all her household was still unstirring when at last she went, soft
step after step, down the broad and polished stair and across the empty
hall. She went quiet, direct, determined, no