“Is that girl going to be troublesome?” she demanded anxiously.

“Not in the way we feared,” he replied.  “All the same, the plot has thickened so far as I am concerned.  That fellow Dane has been here.”

“Go on,” she begged.

“He laid a trap for us, and we fell into it like the veriest simpletons.  He let Beatrice think that he had gone to Chicago.  Of course, he did nothing of the sort.  He turned her loose to come to me, and he had us watched.  He knew that we spent last evening together as old friends.  She was here in my rooms this morning when he arrived.”

“Oh, Philip, Philip!” she murmured.  “Well, what does he suspect?”

“The truth!  He accused me to my face of being Philip Romilly.  Beatrice did her best but, you see, the position was a little absurd.  She denied strenuously that she had ever seen me before, that I was anything but a stranger to her.  In the face of last evening, and his finding her here this morning, it didn’t sound convincing.”

“What is Dane going to do?”

“Heaven knows!  It isn’t his affair, really.  If there were any charge against me—­well, you see, there’d have to be an extradition order.  I should think he will probably lay the facts before Scotland Yard and let them do what they choose.”

She made him sit down and drew a low chair herself to his side.  She held his hand in hers.

“Philip,” she said soothingly, “they can’t possibly prove anything.”

“They can prove,” he pointed out, “that I was in Detton Magna that afternoon.  I don’t think any one except Beatrice saw me start along the canal path, but they can prove that I knew all about Douglas Romilly’s disappearance, because I travelled to America under his name and with his ticket, and deliberately personated him.”

“They can prove all that,” she agreed, “but they can’t prove the crime itself.  Beatrice is the only person who could do that.”

“She proposes to marry me,” he announced grimly.  “That would prevent her giving evidence at all.”

Elizabeth suddenly threw her arms around his neck and held her cheek to his.

“She shan’t marry you!” she declared.  “I want you myself!”

“Elizabeth!”

“Yes, I have made up my mind, Philip.  It is no use.  The other things are fascinating and splendid in their way, but they don’t count, they don’t last.  They’re tinsel, dear, and I don’t want tinsel—­I want the gold.  We’ll face this bravely, wherever it leads, however far, however deep down, and then we’ll start again.”

“You know what this means, Elizabeth?” he faltered.  “That man Power—­”

She brushed the thought away.

“I know.  He’ll close the theatre.  He’ll do all he can to harm us.  That doesn’t matter.  The play is ours.  That’s worth a fortune.  And the new one coming—­why, it’s wonderful, Philip.  We don’t want wealth.  Your brain and my art can win us all that we desire in life.  We shall have something sweeter than anything which Sylvanus Power’s millions could buy.  We shall have our love—­your love for me, dear, and mine for you.”