“It does not matter how I found you, since I did. Why I came is easily explained. I have had a cablegram from Mr. Watson.”
“Good news, I hope,” he said politely.
“I suppose it is,” she answered indifferently. “At least your conspiracy seems to have been successful. It is generally believed that you are dead, and Mr. Watson has been pardoned and reinstated in all that once was his. And now he has sent me this cablegram asking me to join him in Germany and marry him.”
Dejected as Mr. Sabin was he had not yet lost all his sense of humour. He found the idea excessively amusing.
“Let me be the first to congratulate you,” he said, his twinkling eyes belying the grave courtesy of his voice. “It is the conventional happy end to a charming romance.”
“Are you never serious?” she protested.
“Indeed, yes,” he answered. “Forgive me for seeming to be flippant about so serious a matter as a proposal of marriage. I presume you will accept it.”
“Am I to do so?” she asked gravely. “It was to ask your advice that I came here to-day.”
“I have no hesitation in giving it,” he declared. “Accept the proposal at once. It means emancipation for you—emancipation from a career of espionage which has nothing to recommend it. There cannot be two opinions on such a point: give up this unwholesome business and make this man, and yourself too, happy. You will never regret it.”
“I wish I could be as sure of that,” she said wistfully.