To Hellier the idea of love was inseparable from the idea of marriage. He could not think of the woman he loved in any other position than exactly on the same pedestal as himself. His wife before all the world, on a par with his mother and his sisters, respected by them and received as one of themselves.
And she was the daughter of an assassin. A cold-blooded murderer, whose crime had shocked Europe.
It was not her fault. Leprosy is not the leper’s fault; is it any the less a barrier, shutting happiness out for ever from the afflicted one?
CHAPTER XXXIV
FREYBERGER remained at his post all that night.
It was the bitterest experience he had ever known.
Without food, without fire, without light, half worn out from his struggle with Hellier and depressed by the result, the chance of the capture of Klein reduced to the barest possible, he still remained on guard, watchful and ready to spring.
With the full light of day he left the place, bearing with him the only scrap of evidence that could be any use, that is to say, the small valise containing the suit of clothes and the jewel cases and the knife sheath.
He had some food at an early morning coffee-stall in the High Street, and then he proceeded on his way to the Yard.