"Unless these Anarchists find out what you are doing, and treat him still more liberally."
"Oh, I'm not afraid of their find-out," laughed Mallow. "Mrs. Arne and he gang are by no means so clever as they fancy they are. She, particularly, is blinded by her own egotism. Besides, even if they did get at Vraik, they could not bribe him. They want money badly, these people; in fact it was to your fifty thousand pounds they looked to put them in funds. Unfortunately, Carson--we may still call him Carson--has gone off with the plunder."
"Do you think these Anarchists will kill him, as Mrs. Arne threatened?"
"In the end, no doubt; but not till the money is safe in their hands. At present it lies in Carson's real name, whatever that may be. It is possible they may induce him to hand it over, but it will only be to save his life. While he has that money he is safe enough. It would not serve them to kill the goose with the golden eggs. These people may not be so clever as they imagine, but they are not fools enough for that."
"Mr. Mallow, I tremble when I think of the dangers to which you are exposed. Don't these wretches suspect you?"
"No!--that is, one of them does. Jeremiah Trall looks queerly at me at times, because he has read Clara's report of our first conversation. I fancy he is suspicious that it is something more than zeal for the cause that has caused me to join. But he is safe enough. He hates Drabble, and has told him that the letter is burnt. He is not likely to trouble me. Besides, he is, I think, but a very lukewarm member of the brotherhood."
"Nor I! But I am safe so far, and they are not likely to give vent to any of their explosive propensities here in London, and so run the risk of being turned out of the only country in Europe which shelters them. But I must be off, Mrs. Carson. Rouge is waiting for me round the corner."
"Oh, Laurence, do take care of yourself!" implored poor Olive, anxiously.
"Be sure of that, for your sake," and Mallow left the house, sighing to think that he had now no right to say even so much to Olive. Whosoever Carson was, Olive was his wife. "And yet"--he started as the thought crossed his mind--"was she his wife? Was it not possible her marriage might be illegal? If the man were an impostor, he had not made her his wife under his real name--marriage under a false name is no marriage, surely? By Jupiter! I'll lose no time in taking Dimbal's opinion about this," muttered Mallow to himself. "There may be some way of releasing her from that scamp's clutches, after all. But the money will have to go. Well, let it go; she will gladly pay even fifty thousand pounds for her freedom."