Marcus, until ten o’clock, had been coldly uneasy, despite all his careful politeness. Since then the deep lines about his mouth were drawn less tightly, and yet the look on his face did not reassure Helen Trelane, as she came noiselessly into the room. “Well, you have not overexerted yourself to get here!” he did not stop the tapping that was enough to get on an innocent woman’s nerves. “Do you know I have been waiting for an hour? Though, of course I should be at your disposal till four in the morning!” with sarcastic deference. “I couldn’t come,” she retorted. “Cristiane came to my room to brush her hair, and I had to pretend to get ready for bed.” “Evidently.” For her carefully dressed hair had been changed to a small coil that made her ten years older. “Well, now you are here, I have some news!” “Mark!” she caught him by the arm. “Quick, tell me. Good, or bad?” “It is always ‘Mark’ when you are afraid of your neck!” his tone was smoothly uncivil, his action openly brutal as he shook off her hand. “Good, if one can believe it,” he took a telegram from his pocket. “And don’t you?” “I’ve no particular reason to; Van Hoeft was always a liar,” coolly. “Yet I think he knows it wouldn’t pay to lie to me.” “Who’s Van Hoeft? Give it to me.” She snatched it from his hand. “A henchman of mine, in Amsterdam. Be good enough,” peremptorily, “not to read it at the top of your sweetly penetrating voice.” “There’s no one to hear.” But she did moderate the strained pitch of her voice a little. “‘The parcel cannot be traced beyond Paris. Will wire if any news of it.’” “The parcel. Does he mean the diamonds?” she cried, raging at his sullen calm. “Why don’t you answer?” “Of course he does, else why would it be good news?” “And you think he may be deceiving you?” “I think he may be fool enough to try to keep me quiet while he saves his own skin.” “Then why don’t you go and find out,” her voice was harsh, ringing. “Are you going to sit here and let us both be ruined?” “I am going to sit here, because I am afraid to be seen in either Paris or Amsterdam,” he returned as carelessly as if he spoke of avoiding a draft of air. “And because I’ve a good thing here, and the sooner it’s managed the better.” Twice the woman tried to speak and could not. “What was in that paragraph, exactly?” she said at last. “Exactly this.” He drew out a clipping from his pocketbook and read it aloud. “There is at last some clue to the mystery surrounding the death of the late Lord Abbotsford, whose tragic end our readers will remember. Some of the missing diamonds have been found at Amsterdam by a clever detective, and the tracing of their whole history since their disappearance can now be only a matter of time.” “You’re sure that’s all?” she moistened her lip with his full tumbler of whisky and soda. “It’s enough, isn’t it? Oh, pray keep my drink!” as she handed it to him. “I prefer a clean glass.”