Miss Dounay’s face grew suddenly hard; cruel lines that were tense and threatening appeared about her mouth, while her eyes bored straight into his, as she exclaimed: "Never mind about that now. As for the theft: you need never hear from me one word about what you have done. The only injunction that I lay upon you is to keep absolute silence about it yourself. Remember, no matter what comes to pass, you know nothing and have nothing to say. So long as you are silent, I will protect you absolutely. Break the silence, and you will go where you belong!" Of all the hard glances Miss Dounay had given young Burbeck, the look which accompanied this last menacing sentence was positively the hardest. A spasm of mortal terror wrung the young man’s heart, as he saw how deliberately implacable this woman could be, and how completely he was in her power. But presently, Miss Dounay, as if suddenly ashamed of her outburst of feeling over so slight an occasion, broke into radiant smiles, took Rollie by the arm, and led him a few steps in the direction of the door. Her manner was gracious and almost affectionate, proclaiming that at least as long as all went well with her moods, the whole wretched incident was past and forgotten absolutely. As if to make this emphatically clear, she inquired: "And when is it that you go out with Mrs. Ellsworth Harrington upon her launch party?" "With Mrs. Harrington’s launch party?" Rollie asked, in a dazed voice, his mind groping as at some elusive memory. "Yes," the actress replied crisply. "You told me yesterday you were going out to-day with her party for a cruise on the Bay." "Yesterday!" confessed Rollie dreamily. "By Jove, so I did. But," and as though it made all the difference in the world, "that was yesterday!" "And isn’t to-day to-day?" Miss Dounay asked significantly. "Going to buck up, aren’t you?" she continued with intimate friendliness of tone. "You are still to continue as the Amalgamated’s social ambassador?" "Why, of course," the young man replied, although weakly, for after what he had passed through of hope and fear in the past few hours and even the past few minutes, he felt quite unequal to any such prospect as the immediate resumption of his social duties. But it was a part of the swiftly forming plans of the strong willed woman that he should take them up immediately, and she cleverly recalled his mind to the necessity of special attention to Mrs. Harrington’s projects by inquiring tentatively: "I suppose Mrs. Harrington was very much put out because I did not attend her dinner last night?" "I should say!" confessed Rollie, turning a wry face at the memory. "Suppose," suggested Miss Dounay in calculating tones, "that I went with you upon her launch party this afternoon."