elf in passionate consolation, she left him
for a few moments to get him food, and he ate of it like a famished man.

"If I can only get money enough to leave the country, I am saved," he
said. "If I stay here, I shall be found, and they will imprison me for
years. I had rather kill myself!

"Mr. Waymark will give us the money," was the reply, "and we will go
away together."

"That would betray me; it would be folly to face such a risk. If I can
escape, then you shall come to me."

"Oh, you will leave me!" she cried. "I shall lose you, as I did before,
but this time for ever! You don't love me, Paul! And how can I expect
you should? But let me go as your servant. Let me dress like a man, and
follow you. Who will notice then?"

He shook his head.

"I love you, Emily, and shall love you as long as I breathe. To hear
you speak to me like this has almost the power to make me happy. If I
had known it, I shouldn't have stayed so long away from you; I hadn't
the courage to come, and I thought the sight of me would only be misery
to you. I have lived a terrible life, among the poorest people, getting
my bread as they did; oftener starving. Not one of my acquaintances was
to be trusted. I have not seen one face I knew since I first heard of
my danger and escaped. But I had rather live on like that than fall
into the hands of the police; I should never know freedom again. The
thought maddens me with fear."

"You are safe here, love, quite safe!" she urged soothingly. "Who could
know that you are here? Who could know that Maud and I were living
here?"

There was a tap at the door. Mrs. Enderby started to it, turned the
key, and then asked who was there.

"Emily," said Miss Bygrave's voice, "let me come in--or let Paul come
out here and speak to me."

There was something unusual in the speaker's tone; it was quick and
nervous. Paul himself went to the door, and, putting his wife's hand
aside, opened it.

"What is it?" he asked.

She beckoned him to leave the room, then whispered:

"Some one I don't know is at the front door. I opened it with the chain
on, and a man said he must see Mr. Enderby."

"Can't I go out by the back?" Paul asked, all but voiceless with
terror. "I daren't hide in the rooms; they will search them all. How
did they know that I was here? O God, I am lost!"

They could hear the knocking below repeated. Paul hurried down the
stairs, followed by his wife, whom Theresa in vain tried to hold back