"To-night—the same hour you marry me. You shall burn them if you like, here—in this very room—with your own hands."
"You swear?"
"I do. And whatever else men may say of me, there is no man living who can say I have ever lied."
There was an instant's silence and when Craig spoke again all feeling had vanished from his voice. He was once more the deliberate and incisive man of action. He snapped the lid of his watch.
"It is very late," he said, "but it can be managed. It shall be at the hotel—you can rest there while I make the necessary arrangements. My chauffeur is off-duty to-night, but it is only a block away, fortunately. Shall you mind walking?"
"No," she said, apathetically.
Harry was holding himself hard. They were going. He saw clearly his course of action. His two partners in that sorry escapade might have what they had come for—he could compound with them, could take the letters to the hotel and put them into Echo's hands. She would never need to know how he had gained them—that drunken episode, whose very memory must bring a shaming flush to his cheek, should be buried forever! The letters would not have come to her from Craig, and she would stand absolved of her promise. But even as this ran through his mind, fate thrust its hidden hand from the cloud.
"One moment," said Craig. "When I came in, it was beginning to rain. You will need a cloak of some sort." He turned abruptly to the curtained alcove.
The pressure on Harry's temple relaxed. The black mask thrust forward, the man with the sand-coloured hair parted the hangings—his outstretched arm shot out toward the advancing figure. Harry's gaze saw something red leap up from Craig's temple, even before the terrifying concussion rocked the room—a sound threaded by Echo's scream.
There was a rush, a curse and a scramble, flying feet and a dismayed shout from the hall—then a shocked quiet in which he stood disconcerted and appalled, staring between the shielding curtains, through pungent smoke-wreaths, at a girl, her hand over her eyes, who shrank in overmastering terror from a massive form that lay collapsed on the rug before her—Cameron Craig, inert and still, blind and deaf now to sight and sound, the brain empty of scheming, the full cup of his ambition dashed from his lips by the crashing bullet of a slinking house-breaker.