"What's that?" asked Dolf, whose cheek had lighted up with eager hope. Charlotte leaped off the bench and sat down on it, nearer to Dolf, her accent and face as apparently honest as if fibs were unknown to her. "And it is the only thing which has held me back all along," she went on, staring unflinchingly into Dolf's eyes. "Well, what is it?" cried he. "The hazard of the step." "The hazard!" repeated Dolf. "What hazard?" Charlotte glanced round, as if to convince herself that nothing with human ears was near, and her voice dropped to a whisper. "You and Verrall are not upon the safest course----" "It's as safe as many others," interrupted Dolf Pain. "Don't bother about others," testily rebuked Charlotte. "Look to itself. I say that it is hazardous: what little I know of it tells me that. I have heard a word dropped by you and a word dropped by Verrall, and I can put two and two together as well as most people. Is there no danger, no chance," she spoke lower still, and with unmistakable gravity--"that a crisis might come, which--which would carry you to a place where nobody stands willingly--the Criminal Bar?" "Good gracious, no!" cried Rodolf Pain, flinging his cigar away in his surprise and anger. "What could put that into your head, Charlotte? The--profession--may not be one of the strictest honour, and it has its dark sides as well as its light; but there's no danger of such a thing as you hint at. Where did you pick up the idea?" "I don't know where. I have caught a word or two, not meant for me; and now and then I see things reported in the newspapers. You can't deny one thing, Dolf: that, if any unpleasantness should drop from the skies, it has been made a matter of arrangement that you should be the sufferer, not Verrall." Rodolf's light eyes expanded beyond common. "How did you get to know that?" he asked. "Never mind how I got to know it. Is it so?" "Yes, it is," acknowledged Mr. Pain, who was by nature more truthful than Charlotte. "But I give you my word of honour, Charlotte, that there's no danger of our falling into such a pit as you have hinted at. We should not be such fools. The worst that could happen to me would be a sojourn, short or long, in some snug place such as this, while Verrall puts things right. As it has been now, for instance, through this business of Appleby's." "You tell me this to satisfy me," said Charlotte. "I tell it because it is truth--so far as my belief goes, and as far as I can now foresee." "Very well. I accept it," returned Charlotte. "But now, Rodolf, mark what I say. If this worst state of things should come to pass----" "It won't, I tell you," he interrupted. "It can't." "Will you listen? I choose to put the matter upon a supposition that it may do so. If this state of things should come to pass and you fall, I will never fall with you; and it is only upon that condition that I will become your wife."