“Then you do care for me!  Jerusalem!  How happy I should be if only I thought that!”

“Think it, then,” Lilian Rosenberg said, “and let us come to an understanding.  Can you afford to keep a wife—­keep her, as I should expect to be kept—­plenty of new dresses, jewelry, theatres, balls, motors, Ascot, Henley, Cowes?”

“I reckon I could do all that,” Kelson replied.  “I’ve just over a hundred and fifty thousand pounds in the bank, and with this ‘cure’ business, I’m taking on an average ten thousand per week.  I would settle a hundred thousand on you, and make you a handsome allowance—­a thousand a week—­more if you wanted it.”

“Well!” Lilian Rosenberg said after a slight pause, during which Kelson had again seized her hand and was kissing it convulsively, “to quote one of your Americanisms—­I reckon I’ll fix up with you.  On one condition, however.”

“And that,” Kelson murmured, still kissing her feverishly.

“That we marry a week to-day!”

Kelson dropped her hand as if he had been shot.  “We can’t!” he cried.  “The Compact!”

“Oh, damn the Compact!” Lilian Rosenberg said coolly.  “You marry me then—­or not at all!”

“You are joking—­you know what the Compact means!”

“I know what you think it means.  For my own part I don’t see that you have the slightest reason to fear.  The Unknown cannot really harm you.  All you have to do is to turn religious.  Anyhow you must risk it—­that is to say, if you want me.”

“It will lead to a quarrel with Hamar,” Kelson said desperately.  “The Firm will dissolve—­and I shan’t get a cent more money.”

“I’ll be content with what you have in the bank now.  We can live on the interest of fifty thousand.  The hundred thousand you will, of course, settle on me at once.”

He was silent.  She taunted him, she ridiculed him; she at last lost her temper with him—­whereupon he succumbed.  The marriage should take place at a registry office within the week.

“There’ll be no time for a trousseau!” he said.

“Oh, hang the trousseau!” she said.  “I shall have the hundred thousand pounds.  And now for a word of advice.  Be sure that you do not let Hamar get any inkling of our approaching marriage, and be most careful to avoid doing anything that might arouse his suspicions.  It isn’t that I’m afraid of him—­but I don’t want rows—­I’m sick to death of them!”

“You can rely on me to be careful, darling!” Kelson said, kissing her on the lips.  “I’ll be discretion itself,” and so he meant to be.  All the same—­as is the case with every lover—­every lover worthy of the name of lover—­who loves with all the full, ripe vigour of genuine passion, his heart played havoc with his head; and he was blind to everything save visions of his beloved.  In other circumstances this would not have mattered very much, but with Hamar’s lynx eyes continually watching him, it was certain to lead to disaster.