“Will Godensky be in the audience, too?” I asked.
“I’m sure he will. He couldn’t keep away. But he may be late. He won’t come until he’s had a long talk with the Commissary of Police, and tried to thrash matters out.”
“If only your theory’s right, then,—if he hasn’t dared yet to throw suspicion on du Laurier, and if the loss of that letter-case with its contents is as much of a mystery to him as it is to us, we have a little time before us still: we’re comparatively safe for a few hours.”
“We’re as safe,” answered Maxine, with a kind of desperate calmness, “as if we were in a house with gunpowder stored underneath, and a train laid to fire it. But“—she broke off bitterly, “why do I say ‘we’. To you all this can be no more than a regret, a worry.”
“You know that’s not just!” I reproached her. “I’m in this with you now, heart and soul. I spoke no more than the truth when I said I’d give my life, if necessary, to redeem my failure. Already I’ve given something, but—”
“What have you given?” she caught me up quickly.
“My hope of happiness with a girl I love as you love du Laurier,” I answered; then regretted my words and would have taken them back if I could, for she had a heavy enough burden to bear already, without helping me bear mine.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“Don’t think of it. You can do nothing; and I don’t grudge the sacrifice—or anything,” I hurried on.
“Yet I will think of it, if I ever have time to think of anything beyond this tangle. But now, it must be au revoir. Save me, save Raoul, if you can, Ivor. What you can do, I don’t know. I’m groping in darkness. Yet you’re my one hope. For pity’s sake, come to my house when the play’s over, to tell me what you’ve done, if you’ve been able to do anything. Be there at twelve.”