"But he is watched every hour of the day," she explained. "They cannot find the jewels, and they can prove nothing against him unless they do find them, but they know very well that soon he must dispose of them, and they never willingly let him out of their sight. Besides, we are all to share in the proceeds. Why should we not take a little of the risk? Oh, believe me," she went on eagerly, "I can face anything that comes to me through the jewels. It is the other thing I am afraid of. I cannot speak even to you of that awful moment. The man who guessed our secret--he offered silence. We were alone...." She broke off suddenly, absolutely incapable of speech. She was white almost to the lips. Her eyes were filled with reminiscent horror. He leaned over and took her hands once more a little clumsily in his. "Don't think of it," he begged. "That part of it, at any rate, is done with. One must fight for what one has, for the sake of others." "I know--I know!" she agreed, trying to smile at him. "But tell me again--there isn't any way, is there, that the Belgian authorities--I suppose they do still control their own law-courts--could be cajoled into having me sent back? I am frightened. I begin to wonder whether these men, who I am sure have been watching me, are emissaries from the foreign police." He smiled reassuringly. "Not a chance," he declared. "They have something else to do just now. Believe me, you are frightening yourself about nothing. If you are being watched, and I should think it extremely probable that you are being watched, it is simply because you are living under the same roof as your brother and because you are an exceedingly likely medium for the disposal of the jewels." "If I were sure that that was all!" she murmured. "It is all," he told her confidently. "There! Besides, in that other case, remember that you are not friendless. I don't think I need tell you," he went on, a little awkwardly, "that if there were any way I could help, any way I could ensure your safety, it would make me very happy." "I think that I felt that," she answered softly. "I think that that is why I came to you. Leopold has gone to one of his hiding-places--I do not know where--and he will not be back for several days. Please do not go far away. Be where I can telephone to you, or come." "I wouldn't ask anything better," he promised. Her eyes glowed for a moment. She gave him her hand impulsively, and he was dizzy with the strangeness and the joy of it. He had been so long debarred from intercourse with her sex that femininity was making a late but extraordinarily subtle appeal to him. He found himself, even in the moment when he was studying the colour of her eyes, counting the wasted years of his life, remembering with a sick regret the lines upon his face, the streak of grey in his hair. "You are going back now to the Milan?" he enquired. "From here. You could not----?"