“But there was not a chance, not a chance, Jimmie, of doing that—­they would have killed Travers the moment he showed himself in the open.  The only thing we could do that night was to try and save our own lives; the only thing we could look forward to was acquiring in some way, unknown to them, the proof, fully established, with which we could crush them in a single stroke, and before they would have time to strike back.

“The vital thing was proof of my uncle’s death.  That, if it could be obtained at all, could only be obtained in Australia.  Travers was obliged to go somewhere, to disappear from that moment if he wanted to save his life, and he volunteered to go out there.  He left the house that night by the back entrance in an old servant’s suit, which I found for him—­and I never heard from him again until a month ago in the ‘personal’ column of the morning news-Argus, through which we had agreed to communicate.

“As for myself, I left the house the next morning, telling my pseudo uncle that I was going to spend a few days with a friend.  And this I actually did; but in those few days I managed to turn all my own securities, that had been left me by my mother and which amounted to a considerable sum, into cash.  And then, Jimmie, I came to—­this, I have lived like this and in different disguises, as a settlement worker, as a widow of means in a fashionable uptown apartment, but mostly as you see me now—­for five years.  For five years I have watched my supposed uncle, hoping, praying that through him I could get to know the others associated with him; hoping, praying that Travers would succeed; hoping, praying that we would get them all—­and watching day after day, and year after year the ‘personal’ column of the paper, until at last I began to be afraid that it was all useless.  And there was nothing, Jimmie, nothing anywhere, and I had no success”—­her voice choked a little.  “Nothing!  Even Clarke never went again to the house.  You can understand now how I came to know the strange things that I wrote to the Gray Seal, how the life that I have led, how this life here in the underworld, how the constant search for some clew on my own account brought them to my knowledge; and you can understand now, too, why I never dared to let you meet me, for I knew well enough that, while I worked to undermine my father’s and my uncle’s murderers, they were moving heaven and earth to find me.

“That is all, Jimmie.  The day before yesterday, a month after Travers’ first message to let me know that he was coming, there was another ‘personal’ giving me an hour and a telephone number.  He was back!  He had everything—­everything!  We dared not meet; he was afraid, suspicious that they had got track of him again.  You know the rest.  That package contained the proof that, with Travers’ death, can probably never be obtained again.  Do you understand why they want it—­why it is life and death to me?  Do you understand why my supposed uncle offered huge rewards for me, why secretly every resource of that hideous organisation has been employed to find me—­that it is only by my death the estate can pass into their hands, and now—­”