"I suspected."

"How long--?"

"Since the night those strange people were here and tried to make you unhappy with their stupid talk of the Lone Wolf. I suspected, then; and when I came to know you better, I felt quite sure..."

"And now you know--yet hesitate to turn me over to the police!"

"No such thought has ever entered my head. You see--I'm afraid you don't quite understand me--I have faith in you."

"But why?"

She shook her head. "You mustn't ask me that."

At the end of a long moment he said in a broken voice: "Very well: I won't ... Not yet awhile ... But this great gift of faith in me--I can't accept that without trying to repay it."

"If you accept, my friend, you repay."

"No," said Michael Lanyard--"that's not enough. Your jewels must come back to you, if I go to the ends of the earth to find them. And"--man's undying vanity would out--"if there's anyone living who can find them for you, it is I."