forever.

The hour, however, was not for dreaming. There were grim facts
affecting them both, and much to be cleared between them. Moreover he
was merely hired to enact a role that, if it sometimes called for a
show of tender love, was still but a role, after all. He attacked the
business directly.

"We require an understanding on a great many topics," he said to her
slowly. "After I 'phoned you I went to the park, was caught in the
rain, and attacked by two ruffians, who knocked me down, and left me to
what they supposed would be certain destruction."

"Jerold!" she said, and his name thus on her lips, with no one by to
whom she was acting, gave him an exquisite pleasure. There was no
possibility of guilty knowledge on her part. Of this he was thoroughly
convinced. "You? Attacked?"

"Later," he resumed, "when I recovered, I went to the house in
Ninety-third Street, was admitted by the woman in charge, and remained
all night, after taking the liberty of examining all the apartments."

She looked at him in utter amazement.

"Why--but what does it---- You, attacked in the park--these lawless
deeds--you stayed all night---- And you found I had been carried away?"

"No; I merely thought so. The woman knew nothing. But I presently
discovered a number of interesting things. Theodore has installed a
private 'phone in his closet, and by means thereof had overheard our
appointment. Your bureau and dressing-case had both been searched----"

"For the necklaces!" she cried. "You have them safe?"

"I thought it might have been the jewels--or your marriage
certificate," he said, alive to numerous points in the case which, he
felt, were about to develop.

She turned a trifle pale.

"I've sewn the certificate--where I'm sure they'd never find it," she
said. "But the jewels are safe?"

"Quite safe," he said, making a mental note of her insistence on the
topic. "I then discovered the address of the Woodsite house, and you
know the rest."

"It's terrible! The whole thing is terrible!" she said. "I wouldn't
have thought they'd dare to do such things! I don't know what we're
going to do. We're neither of us safe!"

"You must help me all you can," he said, laying his hand for a moment
on her arm. "I've been fighting in the dark. I must find you
apartments where you will not be discovered by the Robinsons, whose
criminal designs on the property inheritance will halt at nothing,
and--you must tell me al