"Very well, then. Listen," she said in a hard, strained voice. "If you resolve, in return for my silence, to assist me, you will be compelled to act at my orders without seeking for any motive, but in blind obedience." "I quite understand," I replied. "I agree." No doubt she desired me to act against her enemy--the young fellow who had extracted fifty pounds from her by threat. "You must say nothing to a soul but meet me in secret in Paris. Stay at the Hotel Continental where I shall stay on the night of the twenty-fourth. That is next Wednesday. At ten o'clock I shall be on the terrace of the Cafe Vachette in the Boulevard St. Michel. Remember the day and hour, and meet me there. Then I will tell you what service I require of you. I shall leave here to-morrow, and I suppose you will leave also." And she opened her jewel-case to reassure herself that her pearls and other ornaments were safe. So she forgave me, shook my hand, and I went out of the room with the cold perspiration still upon me. I made no report of my failure to Rayne, but on the following Wednesday night, after taking a room at the Continental, in Paris, an hotel which I knew well, I crossed the Seine at about half-past nine, and at ten o'clock sauntered up the boulevard to the popular, and rather Bohemian, Cafe Vachette, where at a little table in the corner, set well back from the pavement, I found her seated alone. She was wearing the same dark cloth coat in which I had seen her when she met the mysterious stranger at night at Eastbourne. "Well? So you've kept the appointment, Mr. Cottingham!" she laughed cheerily as I sank into a chair beside her. "You'll order a drink and pay for mine, eh?" she laughed. Then when I had swallowed my liqueur, she suggested that we should stroll down the boulevard and talk. This we did. The proposition which she made without much preliminary held me aghast. "Though I like you very much, Mr. Cottingham," she said as we conversed in low voices, "I cannot conceal from myself that you are a thief. Well, now to be perfectly frank, I want a thief's help--and I know that, as we are friends, you will assist me. You know my inordinate love of jewels. Indeed, I wouldn't have married Owen if he had not given me my pearls. And you know the other ornaments I have--which I might very well never have seen again, eh?" "I know," I said. "Well, now, at the Continental there is at the present moment staying a Madame Rodanet, the widow of the millionaire chocolate manufacturer. She possesses among her jewels the famous Dent du Chat--the Cat's Tooth Ruby. It is called so because it is a perfect stone and curiously pointed, the only one of its kind in the world. I want it, and you must get it for me--as the price of my silence regarding the affair at Eastbourne." I held my breath.