ch flattering attention!" She found it still safest to
mock him.

"We have had enough of this! What is it? Money? Or jewelry?"

She spurned the leather bag on the floor with the toe of her shoe. He
could hear the clink and rattle of the napoleons that followed the
movement. He started suddenly forward and bent over the broken
despatch box. His long white fingers were running dexterously through
the once orderly little packets.

"_Or something more important_?" he went on, as he came to the end of
his stock.

Then he gave a little half-cry, half-gasp; and from the look on his
face the woman saw that he realized what was missing. He peered at
her, with alert and narrow eyes, for a full minute of unbroken silence.
Then, with a little movement of finality, he turned away and put down
the lamp.

"I regret it, but I must ask you for this--this document, without
equivocation and without delay."

She opened her lips to speak, but he cut in before any sound fell from
them.

"Let there be no misunderstanding between us. I know precisely what
you have taken; and it will be in my hands _before you ever leave this
room_!"

She had a sense of destiny shaping itself before her, while she stood a
helpless and disinterested spectator of the vague but implacable
transformation which, in the end, must in one way or the other so
vitally concern her.

"I have nothing," she answered simply.

He waved her protest aside.

"Madam, have you thought, or do you now know, what the cost of this
will be to you?"

He was towering over her now. She was wondering whether or not there
was a ghost of a chance for her to snatch at his pistol.

"I can pay only what I owe," she maintained evasively.

He looked at her, and then at the locked door. His face took on a
sudden and crafty change. The rage and anger ebbed out of him. He
placed the lamp on the dressing-table of polished rosewood. Then his
lean, white fingers meditatively adjusted his tie, and even more
meditatively stroked at the narrow black imperial, before he spoke
again.

"What greater crown may one hope for, in any activity of life, than a
beautiful woman?" he asked quietly.

There was a moment of unbroken silence.

For the first time a touch of fear came to her shadowy eyes, and they
were veiled by a momentary look of furtiveness.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, madam, simply that you will now remain with me!"

"That is absurd!"

She noticed, for the