"Well, what are they?" she interrupted anxiously. "Tell me about them?"
"These diamonds," he continued slowly. "If I might venture to say so, it seems to me that your brother is making a mistake in dragging you into the affair at all. We could have done our business with him and left you out of it."
"But he is watched every hour of the day," she explained. "They cannot find the jewels, and they can prove nothing against him unless they do find them, but they know very well that soon he must dispose of them, and they never willingly let him out of their sight. Besides, we are all to share in the proceeds. Why should we not take a little of the risk? Oh, believe me," she went on eagerly, "I can face anything that comes to me through the jewels. It is the other thing I am afraid of. I cannot speak even to you of that awful moment. The man who guessed our secret—he offered silence. We were alone...."
She broke off suddenly, absolutely incapable of speech. She was white almost to the lips. Her eyes were filled with reminiscent horror. He leaned over and took her hands once more a little clumsily in his.
"Don't think of it," he begged. "That part of it, at any rate, is done with. One must fight for what one has, for the sake of others."
"I know—I know!" she agreed, trying to smile at him. "But tell me again—there isn't any way, is there, that the Belgian authorities—I suppose they do still control their own law-courts—could be cajoled into having me sent back? I am frightened. I begin to wonder whether these men, who I am sure have been watching me, are emissaries from the foreign police."
He smiled reassuringly.
"Not a chance," he declared. "They have something else to do just now. Believe me, you are frightening yourself about nothing. If you are being watched, and I should think it extremely probable that you are being watched, it is simply because you are living under the same roof as your brother and because you are an exceedingly likely medium for the disposal of the jewels."
"If I were sure that that was all!" she murmured.
"It is all," he told her confidently. "There! Besides, in that other case, remember that you are not friendless. I don't think I need tell you," he went on, a little awkwardly, "that if there were any way I could help, any way I could ensure your safety, it would make me very happy."