"You extraordinary child!" At first, he was pure amazement. "You've brought me so far, you've come so far yourself--you've got us both here in such danger, to tell me only this? How could you be so mad--so cruel?" She had locked her hands in front of her until the nails showed white with the pressure. "It was more dangerous there than here. You don't know what has happened since I saw you. And I thought if you and I could only be alone together, without the fear of _them_ always between us, I could show you, I could persuade you--" Before his look she broke down. "Well--you see, they followed us--they're here." "Grant it, they are." He seemed to laugh at them. "You have still your chance. Give everything to me and I can save you still." "'Save _me_?' Oh, nothing could happen to me so terrible as having you break my heart like this! If I should give the sapphire to you I should lose you--even the thought of you--for ever. Nothing could ever be right with us again! Won't you--" she pleaded, "won't you go?" and lifting her hands, taking his face between them, "Won't you, because I love you?" He stood steady to this assault, and smiled down upon her. "Without you and without it I will not budge. Come now, this is the end. I never meant to do another thing." She covered her face with her hands. "Come, come." His voice was urging her, now very gentle. "It's more for your sake than for the jewel now." And his arm around her shoulders was gently forcing her to walk beside him not toward the drive, but away into the tree-grown sheltered wing of the garden. By interlacing paths, from the tremulous gray willows under the somber, clashing eucalyptus spears, under dark wings of cypress they were moving. She was bracing in every nerve against the unnerving of his presence. It had been always so. Even across the distance of a room the mere sight of him had had for her the power to summon those wild spirits of the soul and body that turn reason to a vapor. And now so close, with his arm around her, that same power she had felt when she saw him first, the power that had made her come out and be herself then, the power that had overwhelmed her in the little restaurant, was leagued against her again to make her do this one more thing, which she wouldn't do. Never, never! Despairing, she wondered that such an evil motive could have such strength. "Where have you got it now?" she heard him asking, and she pointed downward toward where the pouch at her knee was swinging to and fro. "Take it up, then," and like a hypnotized creature she gathered it into her hand. But, once she had it, she held it clenched against him.