“I have already that,” she answered. “I learnt the truth to-night.”
Jean le Roi shrugged his shoulders. The game was up then! What an evening of disasters!
“Let me go,” he said. “I ask no more.”
Wilhelmina and Macheson exchanged glances. She vanished into her room for a moment, and reappeared in a long wrapper.
“Come with me softly,” she said, “and I will let you out.”
So they three went on tiptoe down the broad stairs. Macheson and Wilhelmina exchanged no words. Yet they both felt that the future was different for them.
“You can give Mr. Macheson your address,” Wilhelmina said, as they stood at the front door. “I will send you something to help you make a fresh start.”
But Jean le Roi laughed.
“I play only for the great stakes,” he murmured, with a swagger, “and when I lose—I lose.”
So he vanished into the darkness, and Macheson and Wilhelmina remained with clasped hands.