“We have only to die once, and no amount of prudence will release us from the obligation.”
She faced round quickly.
“The men who hold those letters in their possession are desperate,” she said.
“So am I,” he answered carelessly. “It’s the same on both sides, I imagine—merely a matter of gain.”
“It doesn’t only amount to that with you,” she exclaimed sharply, and her eyes darkened in her pale face.
“No. There are other considerations; but it is not necessary to go into them.”
His tone was quietly aloof; it almost seemed that he would remind her his doings were no concern of hers. She withdrew within herself; and for the space of a few seconds there was silence between them. He broke it.
“You did not tell me who the man was who entered your house that night,” he said.
“He was a stranger to me,” she replied. “I had not, to my knowledge, seen him before.”
“It was not Van Bleit?”