"Was your novel finished?" she suddenly asked.
"Then you are out of danger. He will want nothing else of you. But you should have taken it with you."
"I had only sufficient presence of mind to slip it back into the drawer. To-morrow I shall simply demand it."
"You will do nothing of the kind. It is in his handwriting, and you have no legal proof that it is yours. You must take it away secretly. And he will not dare to reclaim it."
She had quite forgotten Jack. Women are invariably selfish for those they love.
"He would laugh at me. However, I must speak to Reginald."
"It is of no avail to speak to him. At least, you must not do so before you have obtained the manuscript. It would unnecessarily jeopardise our plans."
"After, perhaps. But you must not expose yourself to any danger."
"No, dear," he said, and kissed her; "what danger is there, provided I keep my wits about me? He steals upon men only in their sleep and in the dark."
"I shall. In fact, I think he is not at home at this moment. If I go now I may be able to get hold of the manuscript and hide it before he returns."
"I cannot but tremble to think of you in that house."
"You shall have no more reason to tremble in a day or two."
"I don't think so. I must go over my papers and things so as to be ready at any moment to leave the house."
He took her in his arms and looked long and deeply into her eyes.
Then he turned to go, resolute and happy. How strangely he had matured since the summer! Her heart swelled with the consciousness that it was her love that had effected this transformation.
"As I cannot expect you to-morrow, I shall probably go to the opera, but I shall be at home before midnight. Will you call me up then? A word from you will put me at ease for the night, even if it comes over the telephone."
"I will call you up. We moderns have an advantage over the ancients in this respect: the twentieth-century Pyramus can speak to Thisbe even if innumerable walls sever his body from hers."
"A quaint conceit! But let us hope that our love-story will end less tragically," she said, tenderly caressing his hair. "Oh, we shall be happy, you and I," she added, after a while. "The iron finger of fate that lay so heavily on our lives is now withdrawn. Almost withdrawn. Yes, almost. Only almost."