Felix had no difficulty in making an intelligent translation. The mine owner asked a few questions—questions which showed how far he had made up his mind; and upon hearing the answers, given by Vronsky and translated by Felix, he said he had determined to try the experiment, and that, if it were successful, he would like the complete system installed as soon as it could be produced.
It became evident that Vronsky would have to proceed forthwith to Hamburg, to arrange for the manufacture of his patent.
But that he should go without Felix was to him a thing impossible. Not only was the young man indispensable, owing to his linguistic proficiency, there was more. Vronsky had taken a fancy to him; and he was a man who made friends with difficulty, being shy, and slow to adapt himself to any strange person or custom.
When the mine owner, who had been traveling for forty-eight hours, had tramped heavily upstairs to bed, the Russian turned to his secretary with a passionate gesture.
"It is simply that it must, that thou accompaniest me."
Felix stood breathing hard in excitement. The sight of the detective had jarred him more than he felt able to explain. To leave England at once and without warning seemed likely to be the safest plan for the protection of the girl who was the pivot of all his thought. He was quite certain that, the hunt being up, she would not be safe in the north, at the Convent School. That was, as Comrade Dawkes had justly observed, the very place where they would be likely to look for her. In fact, it was the only place she might conceivably make for, since it was the only place in wide England which she knew.
"Will you walk down with me to the wharf?" asked he hesitatingly and wistfully of Vronsky. "I am going to make a clean breast of things to you."
Ever since he had realized how simple and affectionate a soul the Russian was, he had been approaching nearer and nearer to the conviction that it would be best to confide in him. The appearance of the detective made him desperate. He literally must have somebody with whom to discuss the engrossing and difficult subject.
To his relief, Vronsky, with the remark that a breath of air was what he wanted, willingly took down his hat from the peg, and together they sauntered through the quiet town, which already, though it was not much past nine o'clock, showed signs of going to bed.
As they walked, Felix told him his whole story, from beginning to end. He told him his real name, and how, by a curious coincidence, the girl Rona was being befriended by his own people. He gave him the chronicle of his gradual drawing in to the toils of the Brotherhood—of his despair and attempted suicide; and of the fateful precipitation of Rona into the horizon of his landscape.