She had wrenched herself away from him.  He could hear her breath coming sharply in little gasps.  He groped his way onward toward the desk.

“Wait!”—­her tones seemed to ring suddenly vibrant through the room.  “Wait, before you touch that lamp!  I—­I put you on your honour not to light it.”

He stopped abruptly.

“My—­honour?” he repeated mechanically.

“Yes!  I came here to-night because there was no other way.  No other way—­do you understand?  I came, trusting to your honour not to take advantage of the conditions that forced me to do this.  I had no fear that I was wrong—­I have no fear now.  You will not light that lamp, and you will not make any attempt to prevent my going away as I came—­unknown.  Is there any question about it, Jimmie?  I am in your house.”

“You don’t know what you are saying!” he burst out wildly.  “I’ve risked my life for a chance like this again and again; I’ve gone through hell, living in squalour for a month on end as Larry the Bat in the hope that I might discover who you are—­and do you think I’ll let anything stop me now!  I tell you, no—­a thousand times no!”

She made no answer.  There was only her low, quick breathing coming from somewhere near him.  He made another step toward the lamp—­and stopped.

“I tell you, no!” he said again, and took another step forward—­and stopped once more.

Still she made no answer.  A minute passed—­another.  His hand lifted and swept across his forehead in an agitated way.  Still silence.  She neither moved nor spoke.  His hand dropped slowly to his side.  There was a queer, twisted smile upon his lips.

“You win!” he said hoarsely.

“Thank you, Jimmie,” she said simply.

“And your name, who you are”—­he was speaking, but he did not seem to recognise his own voice—­“the hundred other things I’ve sworn I’d make you explain when I found you, are all taboo as well, I suppose!”

“Yes,” she said.

He laughed bitterly.

“Don’t you know,” he cried out, “that between the police and the underworld, our house of cards is likely to collapse at any minute—­that they are hunting the Gray Seal day and night!  Is it to be always like this—­that I am never to know—­until it is too late!”

She came toward him out of the darkness impulsively.

“They will never get you, Jimmie,” she said, in a suppressed voice.  “And some day, I promise you now, you shall have your reward for to-night.  You shall know—­everything.”

“When?” The word came from him with fierce eagerness.

“I do not know,” she answered gently.  “Soon, perhaps—­perhaps sooner than either of us imagine.”

“And by that you mean—­what?” he asked, and his hand reached out for her again through the blackness.

This time she did not draw away.  There was an instant’s hesitation; then she spoke again hurriedly, a note of anxiety in her voice.