“... you quite understand.” (I could hear every word George was saying as plainly as if I were in the room.) “I only have to ring up the police, and in half an hour he’ll be back again in prison—­back for the rest of his life.  He won’t escape a second time—­you can be sure of that.”

“Well?”

The single word came clear and distinct, but it would be difficult to describe the scorn which Joyce managed to pack into it.  It had some effect on George.

“You have just got to do what I want—­that’s all,” he exclaimed angrily.  “I leave England tonight, and unless you come with me I shall go straight from here and ring up Scotland Yard.  You can make your choice now.  You either come down to Southampton with me this evening, or Lyndon goes back to Dartmoor tomorrow.”

“Then you were lying when you said you were anxious to help him?”

With a mighty effort George apparently regained some control over his tongue.

“No, I wasn’t, Joyce,” he said.  “God knows I’m sorry for the poor devil—­I always have been; but there’s nothing in the world that matters to me now except you.  I—­I lost my temper when you said you wouldn’t come.  You didn’t mean it, did you?  Lyndon can never be anything to you; he is dead to all of us.  At the best he can only be a skulking convict hiding from the police in South America or somewhere.  You come with me; you shall never be sorry for it.  I’ve plenty of money, Joyce; and I’ll give you the best time a woman ever had.”

“And if I refuse?” asked Joyce quietly.

It was evident from the sound that George had taken a step towards her.

“Then Lyndon will go back to Dartmoor and stop there till he rots and dies.”

There was a short pause, and then very clearly and deliberately Joyce gave her answer.

“I think you are the foulest man in the world,” she said.  “It makes me sick to be in the same room with you.”

The gasp of fury and astonishment that broke from George’s lips fell on my ears like music.  He was so choking with rage that for a moment he could hardly speak.

“Damn you!” he stuttered at last.  “So that’s your real opinion, is it!  That’s what you’ve been thinking all along!  Trying to use me to help that precious convict lover of yours—­eh?”

I heard him come another step nearer.

“I’ll make you pay for this, anyhow,” he snarled.  “Sick at being in the same room with me, are you?  Then by God I’ll give you some reason—­”

With a swift jerk I flung open the door and stepped in over the threshold.

“Not this time, George dear,” I said.

If the devil himself had shot up through the floor in a crackle of blue flame, I don’t think it could have had a more striking effect on my late partner.  With his mouth open and his face the colour of freshly mixed putty, he stood perfectly still in the centre of the room, gazing at me like a man in a trance.  For a second—­a whole beautiful rich second—­he remained in this engaging attitude; then, as if struck by an electric shock, he suddenly spun round with the obvious intention of making a dart for the door.