ngled in some unknown network of evil and
mystery came back to me with redoubled force.

"I hope the report was satisfactory," I said lightly.

Sonia nodded. "They only wanted to make certain that you had gone to
Edith Terrace. I don't think you were followed after the first night."

"No," I said, "I don't think I was." Precisely how much the boot had
been on the opposite foot it seemed unnecessary to add.

Sonia walked to the table and again opened her bag. "I mustn't stay
any longer--now," she said. "I have to meet the car at six o'clock.
Here are the keys." She took them out and came across to where I was
standing.

"Good-bye, Sonia," I said, taking her hands in mine.

"No, no," she whispered; "don't say that: I hate the word. Listen,
Neil. I am coming to you again, down there, when we shall be
alone--you and I together. I don't know when it will be, but soon--ah,
just as soon as I can. I can't help you, not in the way I mean to,
until you have finished your work, but I will come to you, and--and...."
Her voice failed, and lowering her head she buried her face in my
coat. I bent down, and in a moment her lips met mine in another long,
passionate kiss. It was hard to see how I could have acted otherwise,
but all the same I didn't feel exactly proud of myself.

Indeed, it was in a state of very mixed emotions that I came back into
the house after we had walked together as far as the corner of the
street. The mere fact of my having found out for certain that the man
with the scar was an agent of McMurtrie's was enough in itself to give
me food for pretty considerable thought. Any suspicions I may have had
as to the genuineness of the doctor's story were now amply confirmed.
I was not intimately acquainted with the working methods of the High
Explosives Trade, but it seemed highly improbable that they could
involve the drugging or poisoning of Government officials in public
restaurants. As Tommy had forcibly expressed it, there was some
"damned shady work" going on somewhere or other, and for all Sonia's
comforting assurances concerning my own eventual prosperity, I felt
that I was mixed up in about as sinister a mystery as even an escaped
murderer could very well have dropped into.

The thought of Sonia brought me back to the question of our relations.
I could hardly doubt now that she loved me with all the force of her
strange, sullen, passionate nature, and that for my sake she was
preparing to take some pret