‘Gallant creature!’ he murmured, and his eyes roved over her face. Her superb, supercilious beauty overcame him. ‘Ah!’ he said, ‘what a wife you would make!’ He approached nearer to her. ‘You and I, Miss Racksole, your beauty and wealth and my brains--we could conquer the world. Few men are worthy of you, but I am one of the few. Listen! You might do worse. Marry me. I am a great man; I shall be greater. I adore you. Marry me, and I will save your life. All shall be well. I will begin again. The past shall be as though there had been no past.’ ‘This is somewhat sudden--Jules,’ she said with biting contempt. ‘Did you expect me to be conventional?’ he retorted. ‘I love you.’ ‘Granted,’ she said, for the sake of the argument. ‘Then what will occur to your present wife?’ ‘My present wife?’ ‘Yes, Miss Spencer, as she is called.’ ‘She told you I was her husband?’ ‘Incidentally she did.’ ‘She isn’t.’ ‘Perhaps she isn’t. But, nevertheless, I think I won’t marry you.’ Nella stood like a statue of scorn before him. He went still nearer to her. ‘Give me a kiss, then; one kiss--I won’t ask for more; one kiss from those lips, and you shall go free. Men have ruined themselves for a kiss. I will.’ ‘Coward!’ she ejaculated. ‘Coward!’ he repeated. ‘Coward, am I? Then I’ll be a coward, and you shall kiss me whether you will or not.’ He put a hand on her shoulder. As she shrank back from his lustrous eyes, with an involuntary scream, a figure sprang out of the dinghy a few feet away. With a single blow, neatly directed to Mr Jackson’s ear, Mr Jackson was stretched senseless on the deck. Prince Aribert of Posen stood over him with a revolver. It was probably the greatest surprise of Mr Jackson’s whole life. ‘Don’t be alarmed,’ said the Prince to Nella, ‘my being here is the simplest thing in the world, and I will explain it as soon as I have finished with this fellow.’ Nella could think of nothing to say, but she noticed the revolver in the Prince’s hand. ‘Why,’ she remarked, ‘that’s my revolver.’ ‘It is,’ he said, ‘and I will explain that, too.’ The man at the wheel gave no heed whatever to the scene. Chapter Eleven THE COURT PAWNBROKER ‘MR SAMPSON LEVI wishes to see you, sir.’