British law and Chinese anarchy would soon grapple in a life and death conflict, and it was idle folly to suppose that, no matter how reticent her friends might be, this sharp-witted girl would not find out for herself the exact nature of the link which bound the fortunes of her own family with those of the dead woman.

Theydon tried to pass off the detective’s retort with a careless laugh, but Evelyn reverted to the topic when they were seated in the London-bound train after Winter had dropped them at Tunbridge Wells Station.

“What did the chief inspector mean when he said you refused to help him at first?” she inquired.  “There are gaps in my history of this affair.  How did you come to know that my father was acquainted with Mrs. Lester?  Why did you seem, at one time, to be taking sides with my father against a public inquiry by the police?”

Then, seeing there was no help for it, Theydon began at the beginning and told the girl the full, true and unexpurgated story of events on the Monday night.  Once or twice, when he hinted at the cause of his otherwise inexplicable actions—­ which, quite obviously, lay in his interest in the girl herself, she blushed a little and averted her eyes.  But she listened in silence, and did not speak during many seconds after he had ceased.

Then she simply murmured: 

“Poor, dear Dad!  How worried he must have been!  And how well he concealed it from me!”

After another pause, she added: 

“We are deeply in your debt, Mr. Theydon.  When this ordeal is ended, and those horrid men have been put in prison or driven out of the country, our next difficulty will be to—­ to thank you adequately for what you have done.”

Surgit amari aliquid!  Even in life’s pleasantest hours something bitter arises.  Theydon was in the company of the woman he loved, yet no word of love could rise to his lips.  In the first place he dared not woo the daughter of a millionaire; in the second were his suit even possible, he was far too honorable minded to take immediate advantage of her disturbed state and the services he had undoubtedly rendered, and give the slightest hint of his passion.

So he sighed and looked out of the window at a fast-flying vista of a Kentish hillside, and contented himself by saying: 

“For what little I have done, or attempted to do, I am already rewarded far beyond my wildest dreams.”

Even that was more than he meant to say.  Glancing timidly at Evelyn to see whether or not she resented his words, he was astounded to find that she had blushed scarlet, and, in her turn, was absorbed in the landscape.

Then he remembered that in the frenzy of the moment following the report of her mother’s capture by Wong Li Fu, he had kissed her.  Had he, or had he not?  If not, why not now?  But that way lay madness.  And, wretched doubt, was she already the promised bride of another man?  It was a relief when the train stopped at Sevenoaks.