“My poor darling. But how do you suppose it happened? You haven’t been leaving any letters about?”
“No—no—no,” she interrupted quickly. “No, no. My belief is—she—she—has found out where I—I am—where you are—and has written to them.”
His face grew dark.
“That devil!” he muttered between his teeth. “That she-devil would do anything—anything.”
“I want to warn you, Maurice. The only way out of the difficulty, while we are here, is for us to pretend to care nothing about each other—that the past was only a matter of a passing flirtation, and not to be taken seriously. Do you follow my plan?”
“Yes; but I don’t like it.”
“That can’t be helped. Do you suppose I like it? But it will not be for long. I am going away very soon—it might be any day now—home again. Then we can make up for the present hateful restraint. What is to prevent you returning by the same steamer? You will, Maurice, darling—you will—will you not?” she urged, clinging closer to him, and looking up into his eyes with a piteously hungering expression, as though fearing to read there the faintest forestalment of a negative. But her fears were groundless.
“Will I? I should rather think I would. Listen, Violet. This mad expedition of poor Fanning’s has turned up trumps. I have that about me at this moment which should be worth two or three hundred thousand pounds at least. Only think of it. We have the world at our feet—a new life before us. You are, as you say, going home. But it will be to a real home!”
She looked into his eyes—her gaze seemed to burn into his—her breast was heaving convulsively.
They understood each other.