"Well, I won't ask you any questions," Aaron Rodd said, "but if you want any free advice, here it is. You've made plenty of money. I should keep friends with the law, if I were you. You can't employ such a band of ruffians as you've been talking about, and not find a wrong 'un amongst them now and then."
"If one o' my lads," Jacob Potts declared solemnly, "was to squeal, I tell you the rest would be on 'im like a pack of fox'ounds on a fox. They'd tear 'im limb from limb, that's wot they'd do."
"That wouldn't do you a great deal of good if you were in prison," Aaron Rodd reminded him. "However, you know the law now."
"I know it, and I ain't sweet on the job," Mr. Jacob Potts confessed. "'Owsomever! Good morning to you, Mr. Rodd, and much obliged. You'll add your little bit on to my quarterly account.... Wot 'o, another client!" he added. "I'm toddling."
He shook hands with his adviser and reached the door just as it was opened and Henriette entered. He stood for a moment as though stupefied. Then, as he disappeared through the doorway, he turned round and winked solemnly at Aaron.
"Wishing you good morning, guv'nor!" he said as he closed the door.
Curiously enough, as on that first morning when, they had met in the Embankment Gardens, a little ray of wintry sunshine, which had stolen in through the dusty, uncurtained windows, lay between them. Aaron Rodd, whose first impulse had been one of joy at this unexpected visit, stopped suddenly in his progress across the room. There was something so entirely different about her, a change so absolute and mystifying. The faintly supercilious deportment and expression of the young woman of the world, carrying herself so easily and with such natural grace and self-possession, seemed to have deserted her. She was suddenly a frightened child seeking for shelter, and with a lightning-like effort of imagination he seemed to see her flying for sanctuary from those terrors of which he had already warned her.
"Is anything wrong?" he enquired quickly—"anything fresh, I mean?"
She sank into his chair. She was panting a little, as though she had been hurrying.
"I am afraid!" she confessed. "I am terrified! Give me your hand to hold, and listen."