She must have dozed at last, for a stealthy movement beside her recalled her to objective thinking with a big jump. She looked up, shaking the hair out of her eyes. There was a man standing beside her couch. "Jimmy!" she breathed. "How did you get here?" She was getting up, but he put out a hand and gently forced her back, sitting down beside her. He looked very tired, but he was smiling. "I couldn't stay away. I was supposed to stay till to-morrow, but I'd done my--business--and there didn't seem to be any point in sticking on. So I came back on the night train. Why're you up so late, Joan?" "Oh--I don't know," she said petulantly. "Why can't I sit up if I feel like it? I didn't feel tired." He was gazing fixedly at her, and then he took her face between his two hands and turned it so that the light fell full across it. "That's not true. Something's happened--I can see it in your eyes." His finger moved and brushed two little drops of dew from her cheek. "You've been crying. Joan! What is it?" She said nothing, pulling his hands away and bowing her head again into the darkness. "Have the police been here, Joan?" He was looking about the apartment, but she had replaced the rugs and furniture so that there was no trace of Storm's visit. "The Triangle have blown up Piccadilly--my taxi driver told me about it," he said. "Is that it? Or did the men come through from the next room and--and annoy you?" He could hear the quick hissing intake of her breath. And then, with a little gasping cry, she drooped into his arms. "Joan"--fiercely--"_Joan!_" "All right, boy." Her hands went up and passed behind his head. "I was worried--because of you. And crying--because of you. Because--because--oh, Jimmy, say it for me!" "Because you love me," he said unevenly. "Joan ... my darling girl...." Somehow they had both come to their feet. Never in all Mattock's flabby life, never in Joan's hard life, had either known a moment to compare with that one. She had married him to please him, and she'd never made any secret of it. But now... He kissed her lips, her hair, her eyes, straining her to him. Heaven lay around him like a flame; the glory of it eddied through his veins like fire. "Joan, I'm a rotten old buffer for you to fall in love with," he muttered. "But I'll try to wash that away. We'll go on a proper honeymoon--anywhere you like--out of here--give up this flat----" "No--no!" She broke away from him almost savagely. "You've got to listen. The busies've been here to-night. Arden and Teal. They searched the place--look!" He pulled her roughly back into his arms. "What does that matter?" he demanded. "What does anything else in life matter besides this?" "Nothing.... But you must look, Jimmy." She forced him to turn so that he faced the damaged bookcase. He stared at it dumbly, and she felt him go stiff, but he shook his head. "Have you broken it or something?"