ter?"

She stood stock-still and was holding on to his arm with both hands.

"You mustn't say that, you mustn't say that!" she said brokenly. "It
isn't finished for you, Jack. There's a chance to get out, and the
colonel has told you there's a chance. He meant it. He knows much more
than we do. If you've got murder on your soul, or something worse; if
you feel that you're altogether so bad that there isn't a chance for
you, that there's no goodness in your life which can be expanded, why,
just wait and take what's coming. But for God's sake know your mind, and
if you feel that in another land, with--with someone who loves you by
your side----"

Her voice broke.

"Why, Lollie," he said very gently. "You don't mean----?"

"I'm just as shameless as I've ever been" she said, "but I'm not
proposing to marry you, I'm not asking for anything save your friendship
and your comradeship. I think people can love one another
without--marrying and all that sort of thing; but do you--will you----"

"Will I go?" he asked.

She nodded.

"I'll go anywhere with that prospect in sight," and he slipped his arm
round her shoulders, and, bending, kissed her on the cheek.

CHAPTER XXXVII

THE FALL OF PINTO

Whilst Pinto was putting the finishing touches to his scheme of flight,
the colonel paced his room, whistling the "Soldiers' Chorus" jerkily. He
was restless and nervous, and rendered all the more irritable by the
disappearance of his servant, a minor member of the gang, who had been a
participant in every act of villainy, and who had been in charge of the
arrangements for the abduction of Maisie White. Twice in the course of
the evening he wandered through the hall, opened the outer door, and
looked out on to the landing.

On the first occasion there was nothing to see, but on the second it was
only by the narrowest margin of time that he failed to detect a dark
figure moving noiselessly up the stairs and disappearing on to the
second landing. The man above heard the door open and close again, and
stood watching. Then, when no sound reached him, he moved to the door of
Pinto's flat, opened it, deposited the suit-case which he was carrying
in the hall, and closed the door softly behind him.

He was within for about a quarter of an hour, then he reappeared, and
still carrying his suit-case, passed swiftly down the stairs and out
into the street. The clock struck half-past nine as he disappeared, and
a quarter of an h