"What security do you offer me against the consequences of criminating myself? I want you to promise I shall be none the worse off for it." "You are too fully in my power to demand promises of me. Yet this I will consent to, as I said before, for the sake of others--to let you go unprisoned by the warrant I hold against you, and never to put the officers of justice on your track. One thing, however, I must and shall do. I can not leave this Paradise, into which you have crept like the serpent, without warning Don Miguel what manner of creature he is trusting and sheltering." "Oh, don't do that, Mr. Burton! He'll turn me off on the world again, and I shall be exposed to the same temptations as ever--and here I was leading a better life--I was indeed--reformed, quite reformed and repentant." "So reformed and repentant, so very excellent, that you were only prevented, but now, from killing me and tumbling me into this convenient ravine, by my own prudence." "Every thing was at stake, you know. I was desperate. You must forgive me. It would not be natural for me to submit to see all I had gained snatched away from me--my life periled. I recognized you within five minutes after sitting down to the supper-table last night." "I had no idea you had ever seen me," said Mr. Burton, willing to hear how it was that this man knew him, when he had never met Thorley until yesterday. "I was interested, once, in a forgery case in which you were employed to detect the criminals, by the examination of several handwritings which were given you. You accused a highly respectable fellow-citizen, to the astonishment of everybody, and convicted him, too. I, whom he had employed as an agent in some transactions, but who did not appear in any manner in the case, saw you in the court-room once or twice. I _accidentally_ found out that you were a secret agent of the detective police. When I saw you here, playing the scientific gentleman, my conscience was not so easy as to blind me. I saw the game, and what was at stake. I had the choice between my own safety or yours. I wasn't so self-denying as to decide in your favor, and so--" "You visited my room last night." "Yes. But, on second thought, I decided that to-day would give me the better opportunity. Had you waited a second longer, your friends would have had a hard time tracing your fate. An excuse to my father-in-law, that you had returned to Acapulco without stopping, by a nearer route, would have ended inquiry here." He set his teeth, as he concluded, unable to conceal how much he regretted that this convenient _dénouement_ had been interrupted. "Was it chance caused you to turn?" he continued, after a moment's silence.