“I didn’t dream of such a thing,” the girl faltered slowly.  “I knew, of course, that—­Gene, I shouldn’t have come if—­if only I could have heard from him.”

“My dear girl, it’s a big game we are playing—­a hundred-million-dollar game!  And we shall win it, unless—­we shall win it, in spite of them.  Naturally the diamond dealers don’t want to be compelled to put up one hundred million dollars.  They reason that if the stones I showed them came from new fields, and the supply is unlimited, as I told them, that the diamond market is on the verge of collapse, anyway; and as they look at it they are compelled to know where they came from.  As a matter of fact, if they did know, or if the public got one inkling of the truth, the diamond market would be wrecked, and all the diamond dealers in the world working together couldn’t prevent it.  If they succeed in doing this thing they feel they must do, they will only bring disaster upon themselves.  It would do no good to tell them so; I merely laid my plans and am letting them alone.  So, you see, my dear, it is a big game—­a big game!”

CHAPTER XI

THE SILENT BELL

He stood looking at her with earnest thoughtful eyes.  Suddenly the woman-soul within her awoke in a surging, inexplicable wave of emotion which almost overcame her; and after it came something of realization of the great fight he was making for her—­for her, and the aged, feeble grandfather waiting patiently out there.  He loved her, this master among men, and she sighed contentedly.  For the moment the maddening anxiety that brought her here was forgotten; there was only the ineffable sweetness of seeing him again.  She extended her hands to him impulsively, and he kissed them both.

“The difficulty of you leaving here,” he went on after a little, “is that you would be followed, and within two hours these men would know all about you—­where you are stopping, how long you have been there; they would know of your daily telephone messages to your grandfather, and then, inevitably, they would appear out there, and learn all the rest of it.  It doesn’t matter how closely they keep watch of me.  My plans are all made, I know I am watched, and make no mistakes.  But you!”

“So I should not have come?” she questioned.  “I’m sorry.”

“I understand your anxiety, of course,” he assured her, and he was smiling a little, “but the worst never happens—­so for the present we will not worry.  In an hour or more, now, I imagine we shall receive a pigeon-o-gram which will show that all is well.  And then I shall have to plan for you to get away somehow.”

She leaned toward him a little and again he gathered her in his arms.  The red lips were mutely raised, and he kissed her reverently.

“It’s all for you and it will all be right,” he assured her.

“Gene, dear Gene!”