‘No,’ replied Harry, ‘you have no errand. You are in grief or danger. Lift your veil and tell me what it is.’
‘Then,’ she said, with a sudden composure, ‘you leave but one course open to me.’ And raising the veil, she showed him a countenance from which every trace of colour had fled, eyes marred with weeping, and a brow on which resolve had conquered fear. ‘Harry,’ she began, ‘I am not what I seem.’
‘You have told me that before,’ said Harry, ‘several times.’
‘O Harry, Harry,’ she cried, ‘how you shame me! But this is the God’s truth. I am a dangerous and wicked girl. My name is Clara Luxmore. I was never nearer Cuba than Penzance. From first to last I have cheated and played with you. And what I am I dare not even name to you in words. Indeed, until to-day, until the sleepless watches of last night, I never grasped the depth and foulness of my guilt.’
The young man looked upon her aghast. Then a generous current poured along his veins. ‘That is all one,’ he said. ‘If you be all you say, you have the greater need of me.’
‘Is it possible,’ she exclaimed, ‘that I have schemed in vain? And will nothing drive you from this house of death?’
‘Of death?’ he echoed.
‘Death!’ she cried: ‘death! In that box that you have dragged about London and carried on your defenceless shoulders, sleep, at the trigger’s mercy, the destroying energies of dynamite.’
‘My God!’ cried Harry.
‘Ah!’ she continued wildly, ‘will you flee now? At any moment you may hear the click that sounds the ruin of this building. I was sure M’Guire was wrong; this morning, before day, I flew to Zero; he confirmed my fears; I beheld you, my beloved Harry, fall a victim to my own contrivances. I knew then I loved you—Harry, will you go now? Will you not spare me this unwilling crime?’