"I fear I can neither talk myself, nor quite understand what you mean by your words," he murmured. "My poor head is rather in a whirl. You see, I have given my promise—I have sworn on the Bible to that woman—nothing can ever alter that, or release me now. I am—done for——"
His chin dropped on his breast. He had the semblance of a man who had lost all—for whom death had no terrors.
"Nevertheless, I tell you that I forecasted the result of your interview with Hylda Prout," persisted Furneaux. "Even now I do not see your reason for despair. I knew that Miss Prout had an ardent attachment to you; I said to myself: 'She will surely seek to sell the information in her possession for what she most longs for, and the possibility is that Osborne may yield to her terms—always provided that his attachment to the other lady is profound. If it is not profound, I find out by this device; if it is profound, he becomes engaged to Miss Prout, which is a result that I greatly wish to bring about before his arrest.'"
"My God! why?" asked Osborne, looking up in a tense agony that might have moved a less sardonic spirit.
"For certain police reasons," said Furneaux, smiling with the smug air of one who has given an irrefutable answer.
"But what a price I pay for these police reasons! Is this fair, Inspector Furneaux? Now, in Heaven's name, is this fair? Life-long misery on the one hand, and some trick of officialism on the other!"
The detective seemed to think the conversation at an end, since he sat in silence and stared blankly out of the window.
Osborne shrank into his corner, quite drooping and pinched with misery, and brooded over his misfortunes. Presently he started, and asked furiously:
"In what possible way did Hylda Prout come to know where Miss Marsh was hidden, to use your own ridiculous word?"
"Miss Prout happens to be a really clever woman," answered Furneaux. "In the times of Richelieu she would have governed France from an alcôve. You had better ask her herself how she obtained her knowledge. Still, I don't mind telling you that Miss Marsh has been imprisoned in a wine-cellar by a certain Anarchist, a great man in his way, and that your former secretary has of late days developed quite an intimate acquaintance with Anarchist circles——"