ing about them, and I should have gone away, never dreaming that I had
met the Countess and the General again."

"Do I understand that you drag me into your charge?" Sartoris demanded
angrily.

"Certainly I do," Beatrice cried. Her blood was up now; anger had got
the better of discretion. She was furious to feel that she had been
lured into a den of swindlers, and so all her sagacity and prudence had
gone to the winds. "Those people are accomplices of yours; the very lie
that you told me proves the fact. And you, the lame man in the hansom
cab----"

Beatrice got no further, for a howl of rage from Sartoris prevented more
words. The cripple wheeled his chair across the room and barred the
door.

"You shall pay for this," he said furiously. "You know too much. That
anybody should dare to stand there before me and say what you have said
to me----"

He seemed to be incapable of further speech. The man called Reggie bent
over Beatrice and whispered something in her ear. She caught the words
mechanically----

"Give me what you have in your pocket," he said, "and I will see you
through. Don't hesitate--what are a few paltry diamonds compared with
your life? For that is in danger, and far greater danger than you know.
Pass those stones over, quick."

But Beatrice was not going to be bullied like that. Above all
things--the knowledge stood out before her that Berrington was not far
off. She had only to call for assistance, and he would be by her side at
once. The girl's eyes dilated, but not with fear as the man imagined.

"I am not so helpless as you imagine," Beatrice said. "And you will
never get what you want unless you resort to violence. Now you
understand me."

The man smiled. He had an eye for beauty and courage, rogue though he
was. But he had to reckon with Sartoris, who seemed to be recovering his
self-possession.

"What are you muttering about?" he asked suspiciously. "Ah, what was
that? Did you hear it?"

The trio stood listening, quivering with excitement, tense in every
limb. With a loud cry Beatrice flung herself at the door and beat upon
it madly.

CHAPTER XXXIII

Field stood in the office of the Inland Revenue at Wandsworth with a
feeling that he had got on the right track at last. And yet this
discovery, which he had no reason to doubt, opened up the strangest
possibilities before him. He was face to face with a theory that
staggered him so greatly that he could not speak for a momen