With a magnificent gesture she faced round from the window and came swiftly towards him, her eyes sparkling, her lips wreathed in a happy smile.
"Oh, what a weight of care you have taken from my mind!" she cried. "I can rest now in peace and comfort without thinking that every moment may be my last on earth."
"But if they come they may kill me. What then?" Durham asked, with a smile which had more than amusement in it.
She flashed her brilliant glance at him, raising her eyes quickly to his and drooping them slowly behind the shelter of the dark, heavy lashes.
"No," she said softly. "You are too brave a man—they will not dare to come while you are here."
"And so your presentiment passes into thin air?" he said.
"It's relieved," she said. "Maybe I'm too timid—that affair has upset me so much. Now tell me, do you really think you know who the thieves are?"
She sat down at the table opposite to him and leaned her chin on her hands, her loose sleeves falling away from her arms and revealing, to the best advantage, their rounded whiteness. Into her eyes there came the flicker of a challenge, the sparkle of mischief which gave a new character to her face, a different expression to all he had hitherto seen. There was flippant raillery in her voice as she repeated her question.
"Do you really think you will find out who the thieves are?" she exclaimed.
"One I already know," he replied, fixing his eyes on her as his square jaws set firm in his effort to refrain from allowing his features to relax into the smile which was hovering so near.