"For the simple reason that I have been a fool, my dear. I banked the balance of my money in George Street, and the bank is watched. I must have money to win my way south. Therefore I must find you and reclaim the notes you were kind enough to keep for me. I go to Swanston and find you under surveillance of Chevenix, supported by an animal called Towzer. I may have killed Towzer, by the way. If so, transported to an equal sky, he may shortly have the faithful Chevenix to bear him company. I grow tired of Chevenix." But the fan dropped: her arms lay limp in her lap; and she was staring up at me piteously, with a world of self-reproach in her beautiful eyes. "And I locked up the notes at home to-night--when I dressed for the ball--the first time they have left my heart! O, false!--false of trust that I am!" "Why, dearest, that is not fatal, I hope. You reach home to-night--you slip them into some hiding--say in the corner of the wall below the garden----" "Stop: let me think." She picked up her fan again, and behind it her eyes darkened while I watched and she considered. "You know the hill we pass before we reach Swanston?--it has no name, I believe, but Ronald and I have called it the Fish-back since we were children: it has a clump of firs above it like a fin. There is a quarry on the east slope. If you will be there at eight--I can manage it, I think, and bring the money." "But why should you run the risk?" "Please, Anne--O, please, let me _do_ something! If you knew what it is to sit at home while your--your dearest----" "THE VISCOUNT OF SAINT-YVES!" The name, shouted from the doorway, rang down her faltering sentence as with the clash of an alarm bell. I saw Ronald--in talk with Miss McBean but a few yards away--spin round on his heel and turn slowly back on me with a face of sheer bewilderment. There was no time to conceal myself. To reach either the tea-room or the card-room, I must traverse twelve feet of open floor. We sat in clear view of the main entrance; and there already, with eye-glass lifted, raffish, flamboyant, exuding pomades and bad style, stood my detestable cousin. He saw us at once; wheeled right-about-face and spoke to some one in the vestibule; wheeled round again, and bore straight down, a full swagger varnishing his malign triumph. Flora caught her breath as I stood up to accost him. "Good evening, my cousin! The newspaper told me you were favouring this city with a stay." "At Dumbreck's Hotel: where, my dear Anne, you have not yet done me the pleasure to seek me out." "I gathered," said I, "that you were forestalling the compliment. Our meeting, then, is unexpected?" "Why, no; for, to tell you the truth, the secretary of the Ball Committee, this afternoon, allowed me a glance over his list of _invites_. I am apt to be nice about my company, cousin." Ass that I was! I had never given this obvious danger so much as a thought. "I fancy I have seen one of your latest intimates about the street."