o her mother's house on a bicycle, or even to take away a
wallet which was probably hers. If there was any crime at all, he had
committed it in retaining something to which he had no right. She looked
up at his words.

"I? On the bicycle?" she asked. "No, it was not I."

"Not you?"

She shook her head.

"I was in the grounds--I saw you using your lamp and I was quite close to
you when you picked up the wallet," she said listlessly, "but I was not
on the bicycle."

"Who was it?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"May I have that please?"

She held out her hand and he hesitated.

After all, he had no right or title to this curious purse. He compromised
by putting it on the table and she did not attempt to take it.

"Odette," he said gently and walked round to her, laying his hand on her
shoulder. "Why don't you tell me?"

"Tell you what?" she asked, without looking up.

"Tell me all there is to be told," he said. "I could help you. I want to
help you."

She looked up at him.

"Why do you want to help me?" she asked simply.

He was tongue-tied for a second.

"Because I love you," he said, and his voice shook.

It did not seem to him that he was talking. The words came of their own
volition. He had no more intention of telling her he loved her, indeed he
had no more idea that he did love her, than Whiteside would have had. Yet
he knew he spoke the truth and that a power greater than he had framed
the words and put them on his lips.

The effect on the girl seemed extraordinary to him. She did not shrink
back, she did not look surprised. She showed no astonishment whatever.
She just brought her eyes back to the table and said: "Oh!"

That calm, almost uncannily calm acceptance of a fact which Tarling had
not dared to breathe to himself, was the second shock of the evening.

It was as though she had known it all along. He was on his knees by her
side and his arm was about her shoulders, even before his brain had
willed the act.

"My girl, my girl," he said gently. "Won't you please tell me?"

Her head was still bent and her voice was so low as to be almost
inaudible.

"Tell you what?" she asked.

"What you know of this business," he said. "Don't you realise how every
new development brings you more and more under suspicion?"

"What business do you mean?"

He hesitated.

"The murder of Thornton Lyne? I know nothing of that."

She made no response to that tender arm of his, but sat rigid. Some