“But consider, Sanetta,” protested Venner, with a darker frown.  “Think of what chances you are taking.”

“Of what?”

“Suppose Nick Carter suspects you, and has a shadow on your movements—­”

“Bah!” interrupted Cervera, with a snap and flash of her black eyes.  “I care nothing for Nick Carter. Caramba! do you think I fear him?  I will fool and foil Nick Carter as I have fooled and foiled his betters.  I shall go to the plant to-morrow, and that settles it.”

“Stop a bit,” insisted Venner, almost angrily.  “Do you forget that Kilgore and all his gang are there?  Do you forget that we are just about launching our gigantic enterprise?  We now have nearly a million dollars’ worth of diamonds manufactured, or in the process of making, and I already have begun to distribute them on the market at a fabulous profit.”

“Well, I know all that.  What has it to do with my going there?”

“Such a move on your part may give Carter a clew to our location,” declared Venner.

“Oh, no, it won’t,” sneered Cervera, scornfully.  “I’ll look out for that.”

“Discovery would ruin all, and possibly land the whole gang behind prison bars.”

“Faugh!  I’m as well at the plant as here, and there I am going.  You let me alone to evade the Carters.”

“But why in thunder are you so determined to make this change?” demanded Venner.

An amorous fire came stealing into the woman’s resolute eyes, and she shrugged her shapely shoulders significantly.

“You should know why without asking,” she slowly answered, with her gaze fixed upon his changing countenance.  “It is because I love you, Rufe, and wish to be where you spend so much of your time.”

“So much of my time?” echoed Venner, inquiringly.

“So at least you tell me.”

“Do you doubt it?”

“I know that five days and nights have passed since you came here to see me,” cried Cervera, bitterly.  “I have only your own word in explanation of your neglect.”

“That should be enough,” said Venner, curtly.

“Yet a man after a new love does not shrink from lying to an old,” retorted Cervera.

“Pshaw!  You are jealous again.”

“A woman who loves as I love is always jealous.”

“Of whom now?”

“You know of whom.”

“I tell you I have not seen Violet Page since the theater closed.”

“I have only your word for it,” repeated Cervera, with incredulity bright in her sensuous eyes.  “You know what I told you, Rufe.  I’ll not tamely permit that pale-faced nightingale to come between you and me.  You know what I told you.  I would kill her as I would a—­a snake!”

Despite his own stiff nerves, Venner recoiled from the look on the woman’s desperate face.  Her voice had fallen to a hiss like that of the reptile mentioned.

“You are mad, Sanetta,” he cried, irritably.  “You have no occasion for this jealousy and hatred.”