"Him? No; but his fear, yes. I tell you he dare not play me false."
"Pray Heaven it will all be right; but I still fear for you, Paul."
"It will be as surely as I kiss you now," I whispered. "And now can you get your father to leave? There is no absolute need now, thank Heaven; but while I am doing what I have to do, it would be best for him to be out of the city."
"And you?" she asked with quick solicitude.
"I shall be all right. I hold all the winning cards, whatever happens."
Her dear face clouded and her brows puckered with a frown as she shook her head. "I could not go if you were to remain. I will not, at least until I know that all is right with you. Nor indeed could I if I would. My father has been in a terrible state for some hours. I told him what you suggested--that the scheme had failed, you know--and he wanted to rush out of the house on the instant. I only stopped him by pointing out the police to him."
"They are gone, I am glad to say. Von Felsen himself gave me a note calling them away. What's that?" I broke off, as a sound upstairs reached us, followed a moment afterwards by the shutting of a door.
"Bessie probably," suggested Althea.
"Of course. I forgot; but I have been a bit strung up by the night's business. I was going to say that you had better not tell your father the police have been removed. If he will not leave the city, he is safest here." I hurried away then to put von Felsen's confessions and the keys I had taken from him in safe hiding, and soon after that Bessie came down and we started for the station.
After what Dormund had told me that day at the station about the passports, I had some doubt whether some demur might be raised about Bessie's departure; but no questions were asked, and she was soon seated in the ladies' compartment with two other Englishwomen who, I was glad to hear, were going through to Brussels. In the bustle of the preparations and in giving her full instructions about the packet she was carrying, I had thought no more of the little incident while I was with Althea; but at the last moment I remembered it.