"How did you meet him, George?"
"He met me. That is, he wrote to me at Medmenham asking me to see him in the City as he had something important to tell me. We met in a Mecca."
"A Mecca?"
"One of those underground coffee-rooms in London City, dear. There Canning, or rather Sargent as he really is, explained."
"He told you who he was?"
"Yes! And he told me also that Tait was connected with a gang of thieves, two members of which had robbed Tait's strong-room with his connivance. Tait thus got the insurance money in addition to the jewels which he sold on the Continent. He made about forty thousand pounds over the deal and, after paying his accomplices, had enough left to avert a financial crisis, which was the reason for the robbery."
"Did you know then that my father was a thief?" asked Lesbia, shuddering.
"Of course not."
"I thought you did know, and for that reason had thrown me over."
"Lesbia," George said vehemently, and pressed her so strongly to his breast that she almost cried out with the delicious pain; "how can you think so meanly of me? Were you the daughter of a murderer I should marry you. It is you whom I love, my dearest, and not all the fathers and crimes in the world will ever separate us."