“In such a case,” I said slowly, looking at her all the time, “I should endeavour to get your uncle’s and Codd’s share of the treasure from him.  If I am successful, then I shall let him go where he pleases.”

“And supposing you are unsuccessful in obtaining the money or the gems?”

“Then I must endeavour to think of some other way,” I replied, “but somehow I do not think I shall be unsuccessful.”

“Nor do I,” she answered, looking me full and fair in the face.  “I fancy you know that I believe in you most implicitly, Mr. Fairfax.”

“In that case, do you mind shaking hands upon it?” I said.

“I will do so with much pleasure,” she answered.  “You cannot imagine what a weight you have lifted off my mind.  I have been so depressed about it lately that I have scarcely known what to do.  I have lain awake at night, turning it over and over in my mind, and trying to convince myself as to what was best to be done.  Then my uncle told me you were coming down here, and I resolved to put the case before you as I have done and to ask your opinion.”

She gave me her little hand, and I took it and held it in my own.  Then I released it and we strode back along the garden-path together without another word.  The afternoon was well advanced by this time, and when we reached the summer-house, where Codd was still reading, we found that a little wicker tea-table had been brought out from the house and that chairs had been placed for us round it.  To my thinking there is nothing that becomes a pretty woman more than the mere commonplace act of pouring out tea.  It was certainly so in this case.  When I looked at the white cloth upon the table, the heavy brass tray, and the silver jugs and teapot, and thought of my own cracked earthenware vessel, then reposing in a cupboard in my office, and in which I brewed my cup of tea every afternoon, I smiled to myself.  I felt that I should never use it again without recalling this meal.  After that I wondered whether it would ever be my good fortune to sit in this garden again, and to sip my Orange Pekoe from the same dainty service.  The thought that I might not do so was, strangely enough, an unpleasant one, and I put it from me with all promptness.  During the meal, Kitwater scarcely uttered a word.  We had exhausted the probabilities of the case long since, and I soon found that he could think or talk of nothing else.  At six o’clock I prepared to make my adieux.  My train left Bishopstowe for London at the half-hour, and I should just have time to walk the distance comfortably.  To my delight my hostess decided to go to church, and said she would walk with me as far as the lych-gate.  She accordingly left us and went into the house to make her toilet.  As soon as she had gone Kitwater fumbled his way across to where I was sitting, and having discovered a chair beside me, seated himself in it.

“Mr. Fairfax,” said he, “I labour under the fear that you cannot understand my position.  Can you realize what it is like to feel shut up in the dark, waiting and longing always for only one thing?  Could you not let me come to Paris with you to-morrow?”