“You could be trusted not to betray it, I will swear,” I said. “But how about others? There was the coachman who drove you, for instance.”
“We dropped him near the Mont de Piété, pretending it was our destination.”
“Admirable strategist! But you say you were warned of pursuit. That seems to speak some knowledge of your movements.”
“I am afraid so! We can only hope that it will prove knowledge misled.”
“Afraid so—afraid so!” I got to my feet, more inclined to laugh than protest, for all my perplexity. “Then I am to take it—provided I accept this amazing trust—that, if this maniac succeeds in penetrating our secret, the young lady will be in danger?”
My step-sister, it seemed to me, hesitated momentarily, with a queer down-glance, before answering my question.
“In the gravest danger, Felix—I am forced to admit it.”
“And—incidentally—I, perhaps?”
Again she appeared to hesitate, before facing me with a bold challenge:—
“I do you the justice that, for all our differences, I should never have denied you. You will not take personal peril into account in the matter of protecting an unhappy young woman against her persecutors.”