"Whatever they attempt," he replied, "will, I believe, be thwarted. I take Paz and Zara--especially Zara, now that you tell me she is a jilted woman--against Sebastian and Madame Carmaux. But, to return to my communications with you."
"Yes," she said, with an inward catching of her breath--"yes, your communications with me.
"Let it be this way. If you do not hear from me at the end of every forty-eight hours, then begin to think that things may be going wrong with me; while if, at the end of a second forty-eight hours, you have still heard nothing from me, well! consider that they have gone very wrong indeed. Shall it be like that?"
"Oh!" the girl exclaimed with almost a gasp, "I am appalled. Appalled even at the thought that such an arrangement, such precautions, should have to be made."
"Of course, they may not be necessary," he said; "after all, we may be misjudging Sebastian."
"We are not," she answered emphatically. "I feel it; I know it. I mistrust that man--I have always disliked him. I feel as sure as it is possible to be that he meditates harm to you. And--and--" she almost sobbed, "what is to be done if the second forty-eight hours have passed, and still I have heard nothing from or of you."
"Then," he said with a light laugh--"then I think I should warn some of those gentry whom we have seen loafing about Belize in a light and tasteful uniform--the constabulary, aren't they?--that a little visit to Desolada might be useful."
"Oh!" Beatrix cried again now, "don't make a joke of it, Mr. Ritherdon! Don't, pray don't. You cannot understand how I feel, nor what my fears are. If four days went by and I heard no tidings of you, I should begin to think that--that----"
"No," he said, interrupting her. "No. Don't think that! Whatever Sebastian may suspect me of knowing, he would not do what you imagine. He would not----"
"Kill you, you would say! Why, then, should he mount you on that horse? And--and was--there no intention of killing you when the coral snake was found in your bed--a deadly, venomous reptile, whose bite is always fatal within the hour--nor when that shot was fired at you?"