suddenly meant, I wouldn't have kicked so much, for there's always one way out of these things. But I did kick--Iris, I've worked in the last month as I never thought to work, to try and raise the money to pay off the holders, to stave off the certain discovery or make it better when discovered. That was "the way out" I told you about, you remember?... And I came home to lunch to-day to tell you that I've done all I could--and that now there's nothing but a miracle between me and the police.' "I haven't any memory left for what I actually said or did then, Ronnie. And I've read somewhere that despair keeps no diary. He threw those last words at me, just threw them, as though he was past caring how brutally he got rid of them--and, at the end of the fuse he had been lighting all the afternoon, they simply burnt up my nerves. I was hysterical, perhaps.... Anyway, the very next moment we seemed to be standing together, weirdly almost fighting; but it was only that he had me by the shoulder, very close to him, shaking me a little. And I staring blindly at him, and he trembling with a feverish impatience. "'For God's sake don't go on about it, Iris, else I won't be able to bear it at all. I wish I hadn't told you now--but, my dear, I had to tell you, I had to tell you the whole thing. No one but you matters in my life--and I had to tell you why I can't matter in yours any more. Antony's got what he never dreamed to get, he's got me to hate him at last.... Oh, but that's just nonsense. He doesn't matter any more, he might be dead or alive for all I care. Nothing matters but you....' "I think I said something about our having to run away, quickly. I must have repeated that several times, for he was staring down at me so thoughtfully that he seemed already to have run away, a thousand miles away. "'Yes,' he said, but ever so vaguely, 'we might do that. There'll be no cry for two or three days. Longer perhaps, if I can arrange things. Yes, we might run for it. I'll see.... But there will be no happiness for us now, Iris. I know.' "But if a God had prophesied so I couldn't have believed him. All the terrors and bogeys he had called up, they faded to nothing before the sudden, active hope that he and I might be allowed to love, anywhere, what matter where.... Oh, there was no romance about it! There's seldom a moment, an ice-clear moment, when a man or woman can put one passion against the whole world, and then forget even that the world is there in contrast. That was my moment, a splendid devouring one, and never to come again. Crime, swindling?... dim silly words, beside my lust for him. I wanted him, he was my man. And I told him that no police in this world would beat my devilish cunning--and he suddenly let go of me, and roared with laughter, as though he would die unless he could laugh.