‘I accept your promise,’ she said. ‘I have travelled up to London to make an appeal to you to abandon this inquiry which you have undertaken—at whose instance I know not.’
‘I cannot abandon it now,’ he said mischievously.
‘Why?’ she queried.
‘Question for question,’ he retorted. ‘How did you discover that I was a professional spy, as you call it?’
‘Bah!’ she replied. ‘Simply by asking. When I got your address, the rest was easy. So you decline to be a gentleman in the manner that I suggest? I might have anticipated as much. I might have known that I was coming to London on a fool’s errand. And yet something in your face hinted to me that perhaps after all——’
‘Miss Craig,’ he said earnestly, ‘I cannot, abandon the inquiry now, because I have already abandoned it. I came down to London this morning with the intention of doing nothing more in the matter, and by noon to-day I had informed my clients to that effect.’
‘I was not, then, mistaken in you,’ she murmured.
To his intense astonishment there was the tremor of a sob in that proud voice.
‘Not entirely mistaken,’ he said, with a faint smile.
‘What induced you to give up the business of spying upon us?’ she asked, looking at him.