nwitting assistance, and, as we have seen, to impress upon her that I
was actually his attendant, and as ignorant of his past as the doctor
himself. "So you're all right, Bunny," he had assured me; "she thinks
you knew nothing the other night. I told you she wasn't a clever woman
outside her work. But hasn't she a will!" I told Raffles it was very
considerate of him to keep me out of it, but that it seemed to me like
tying up the bag when the cat had escaped. His reply was an admission
that one must be on the defensive with such a woman and in such a case.
Soon after this, Raffles, looking far from well, fell back upon his
own last line of defence, namely, his bed; and now, as always in the
end, I could see some sense in his subtleties, since it was
comparatively easy for me to turn even Jacques Saillard from the door,
with Dr. Theobald's explicit injunctions, and with my own honesty
unquestioned. So for a day we had peace once more. Then came letters,
then the doctor again and again, and finally my dismissal in the
incredible words which have necessitated these explanations.

"Go?" I echoed. "Go where?"

"It's that ass Theobald," said Raffles. "He insists."

"On my going altogether?"

He nodded.

"And you mean to let him have his way?"

I had no language for my mortification and disgust, though neither was
as yet quite so great as my surprise. I had foreseen almost every
conceivable consequence of the mad act which brought all this trouble
to pass, but a voluntary division between Raffles and me had certainly
never entered my calculations. Nor could I think that it had occurred
to him before our egregious doctor's last visit, this very morning.
Raffles had looked irritated as he broke the news to me from his
pillow, and now there was some sympathy in the way he sat up in bed, as
though he felt the thing himself.

"I am obliged to give in to the fellow," said he. "He's saving me from
my friend, and I'm bound to humor him. But I can tell you that we've
been arguing about you for the last half hour, Bunny. It was no use;
the idiot has had his knife in you from the first; and he wouldn't see
me through on any other conditions."

"So he is going to see you through, is he?"

"It tots up to that," said Raffles, looking at me rather hard. "At all
events he has come to my rescue for the time being, and it's for me to
manage the rest. You don't know what it has been, Bunny, these last
few weeks; an