He felt her tears upon his cheek, her lips pressed to his.  He held her there, but although his heart was beating with renewed hope, he said nothing for a time.  When she stepped back to look at his face, however, the change was already there.

“You are glad, Philip!” she cried.  “You are happy—­I can see it!  You didn’t ever care really for that girl, did you?”

He almost laughed.

“Not like this!” he answered confidently.  “I never even for a single moment pretended to care in a great way.  We were just companions in misfortune.  The madness that came over me that day had been growing in my brain for years.  I hated Douglas Romilly.  I had every reason to hate him.  And then, after all he had robbed me of—­my one companion—­”

She stopped him.

“I know—­I know,” she murmured.  “You need never try to explain anything to me.  I know everything, I understand, I sympathise.”

A revulsion of feeling had suddenly chilled him.  He held her to him none the less tightly but there was a ring of despair in his tone.

“Elizabeth, think what it may mean!” he muttered.  “How can I drag you through it all?  A trial, perhaps, the suspense, and all the time that guilty knowledge behind—­yours and mine!”

“Pooh!” she exclaimed lightly.  “I am not a sentimentalist.  I am a woman in love.”

“But, Elizabeth, I am guilty!” he groaned.  “That’s the horror of it!  I’d take the risk if I were an innocent man—­I’d risk everything.  But I am afraid to stand there and know that every word they say against me will be true, and every word of the men who speak in my defence will be false.  Can’t you realise the black, abominable horror of it?  I couldn’t drag you into such a plight, Elizabeth!  I was weak to think of it.  I couldn’t!”

“You’ll drag me nowhere,” she answered, holding him tightly.  “Where I go my feet will lead me, and my love for you.  You can’t help that.  We’ll play the game—­play it magnificently, Philip.  My faith in you will count for something.”

“But, dear,” he protested, “don’t you see?  If the case ever comes into court, even if I get off, every one will know that it is through a technicality.  The evidence is too strong.  Half the world at least will believe me guilty.”

“It shan’t come into court,” she proclaimed confidently.  “I shall talk to Dane.  I have some influence with the police authorities here.  I shall point out how ridiculous it all is.  What’s the use of formulating a charge that they can never, never prove?”

“Unless,” he reminded her hesitatingly, “Beatrice—­”

“Beatrice!  You’re not afraid of her?”

“I am afraid of no one or anything,” he declared, “when you are here!  But Beatrice has been behaving strangely ever since she arrived.  She has a sudden fancy for remembering that in a sense we were once engaged.”

“Beatrice,” Elizabeth announced, “must be satisfied with her twenty thousand pounds.  I know what you are trying to say—­she wants you.  She shan’t have you, Philip!  We’ll find her some one else.  We’ll be kind to her—­I don’t mind that.  Very soon we’ll find her plenty of friends.  But as for you, Philip—­well, she just shan’t have you, and that’s all there is about it.”