“I had another good look at the safe this morning,” the man went on presently.  “It is one of the best makes, and would resist anything, except, of course, the electric current.”

“To force it would be to put Henry on his guard,” Lady Heyburn remarked, “If we are to know what secrets are there, and use our knowledge for our own benefit, we must open it with a key and relock it.”

“Well, Winnie, we must do something.  We must both have money—­that’s quite evident,” he said.  “That last five hundred you gave me will stave off ruin for a week or so.  But after that we must certainly be well supplied, or else there may be revelations well—­which will be as ugly for yourself as for me.”

“I know,” she exclaimed.  “I fully realise the necessity of getting funds.  The other affair, though we worked it so well, proved a miserable fiasco.”

“And very nearly gave us away into the bargain,” he declared.  “I tell you frankly, Winnie, that if we can’t pay a level five thousand in three weeks’ time the truth will be out, and you know what that will mean.”

He was watching her handsome face as he spoke, and he noticed how pale and drawn were her features as he referred to certain ugly truths that might leak out.

“Yes,” she gasped, “I know, James.  We’d both find ourselves under arrest.  Such a contretemps is really too terrible to think of.”

“But, my dear girl, it must be faced,” he said, “if we don’t get the money.  Can’t you work Sir Henry for a bit more, say another thousand.  Make an excuse that you have bills to pay in London—­dressmakers, jewellers, milliners—­any good story will surely do.  He gives you anything you ask for.”

She shook her head and sighed.  “I fear I’ve imposed upon his good-nature far too much already,” she answered.  “I know I’m extravagant; I’m sorry, but can’t help it.  Born in me, I suppose.  A few months ago he found out that I’d been paying Mellish a hundred pounds each time to decorate Park Street with flowers for my Wednesday evenings, and he created an awful scene.  He’s getting horribly stingy of late.”

“Yes; but the flowers were a bit expensive, weren’t they?” he remarked.

“Not at all.  Lady Fortrose, the wife of the soap-man, pays two hundred and fifty pounds for flowers for her house every Thursday in the season; and mine looked quite as good as hers.  I think Mellish is much cheaper than anybody else.  And, just because I went to a cheap man, Henry was horrible.  He said all sorts of weird things about my reckless extravagance and the suffering poor—­as though I had anything to do with them.  The genuine poor are really people like you and me.”

“I know,” he said philosophically, lighting another cigarette.  “But all this is beside the point.  We want money, and money we must have in order to avoid exposure.  You—­”

“I was a fool to have had anything to do with that other little affair,” she interrupted.