id of them and in all probability you are
in their pay--am I right in supposing that you are one of Mr. T. X.
Meredith's accomplices!"

"I do not know Mr. T. X. Meredith," she replied calmly, "and I am not in
any way associated with the police."

"Nevertheless," he persisted, "you do not seem to be very scared of them
and that removes any temptation I might have to place you in the hands
of the law. Let me see," he pursed his lips as he applied his mind to
the problem.

She half sat, half stood, watching him without any evidence of
apprehension, but with a heart which began to quake a little. For three
months she had played her part and the strain had been greater than
she had confessed to herself. Now the great moment had come and she had
failed. That was the sickening, maddening thing about it all. It was
not the fear of arrest or of conviction, which brought a sinking to
her heart; it was the despair of failure, added to a sense of her
helplessness against this man.

"If I had you arrested your name would appear in all the papers, of
course," he said, narrowly, "and your photograph would probably adorn
the Sunday journals," he added expectantly.

She laughed.

"That doesn't appeal to me," she said.

"I am afraid it doesn't," he replied, and strolled towards her as though
to pass her on his way to the window. He was abreast of her when he
suddenly swung round and catching her in his arms he caught her close
to him. Before she could realise what he planned, he had stooped swiftly
and kissed her full upon the mouth.

"If you scream, I shall kiss you again," he said, "for I have sent the
maid to buy some more stamps--to the General Post Office."

"Let me go," she gasped.

Now for the first time he saw the terror in her eyes, and there surged
within him that mad sense of triumph, that intoxication of power which
had been associated with the red letter days of his warped life.

"You're afraid!" he bantered her, half whispering the words, "you're
afraid now, aren't you? If you scream I shall kiss you again, do you
hear?"

"For God's sake, let me go," she whispered.

He felt her shaking in his arms, and suddenly he released her with a
little laugh, and she sank trembling from head to foot upon the chair by
her desk.

"Now you're going to tell me who sent you here," he went on harshly,
"and why you came. I never suspected you. I thought you were one of
those strange creatures one meets in England, a gentlew