“Please; do tell me.”  She spoke mechanically, still hardly able to trust her voice above a whisper.

They sat down and he related the salient points of his interview with Henshaw.  “It was lucky that I happened to have something of a hold over him,” he concluded with a laugh; “Mr. Gervase Henshaw is not wanting in determination, and it took a long time to persuade him that he could not possibly win the game he was playing; but he stood to lose more heavily than he could afford.  The conclusion, however, was at last borne in upon him that the position he had taken up was untenable, and that paper is the result.”

“That paper,” she said in a low voice, “means life to me instead of a living death; it means more than I can tell you, more than even you can understand.”

He had risen, but before he could speak she had come to him and impulsively taken his hand.  “Mr. Gifford,” she said, “tell me how I can repay you.”

Her eyes met his; they were full of gratitude and something more.  But he resisted the temptation to answer her question in the way it was plain to him he was invited to do.

“It is reward enough for me to have served you,” he responded steadily.  “Seeing that chance gave me the power, I could do no less.”

“You would have risked your life for mine,” she persisted, her eyes still on him.

“Hardly that,” he returned, with an effort to force a smile.  “But had it been necessary, I should have been quite content to do so.”

“And you will not tell me how I can show my gratitude?”

“I did not do it for reward,” he murmured, scarcely able to restrain himself.

“I am sure of that,” she assented.  “But you once hinted, or at any rate led me to believe, that I could repay you.”

There could be no pretence of ignoring her meaning now.  Still he felt that chivalry forbade his acceptance.

“I was wrong,” he replied with an effort, “and most unfair if I suggested a bargain.”

“Have you repented the suggestion?” she asked almost quizzingly and with a curious absence of her characteristic pride.

“Only in a sense,” he answered.  “I hope I am too honourable to take an unfair advantage.”

She laughed now; joyously, it seemed.  “If your scruples are so strong there will be nothing for it but for me to throw away mine and offer myself to you.”

“Edith,” he exclaimed in a flash of rapture, then, checked the passionate impulse to take her in his arms.  “You must not; not now, not now.  It is not fair to yourself.  At the moment of your release from this horrible danger you cannot be master of yourself.  You must not mistake gratitude for love.”

Edith drew back with a touch of resentful pride.

“If you think I don’t know my own mind—­” she began.