Leonore looked at them.  “That’s the glove I lost at Mrs. Costell’s, isn’t it?” she asked gravely.

Peter nodded his head.

“And is that the handkerchief which disappeared in your rooms, at your second dinner?”

Peter nodded his head.

“And both times you helped me hunt for them?”

Peter nodded his head.  He at last knew how prisoners felt when he was cross-examining them.

“I knew you had them all the time,” said Leonore laughing.  “It was dreadfully funny to see you pretend to hunt, when the guilty look on your own face was enough to show you had them.  That’s why I was so determined to find them.”

Peter knew how prisoners felt when the jury says, “Not guilty.”

“But how did the holes come in them?” said Leonore.  “Do you have mice in your room?” Leonore suddenly looked as worried as had Peter the moment before.

Peter put his hand in the sachet, and produced a bent coin.  “Look at that,” he said.

“Why, it’s my luck-piece!” exclaimed Leonore.  “And you’ve spoiled that too.  What a careless boy!”

“No,” said Peter.  “They are not spoiled to me.  Do you know what cut these holes and bent this coin?”

“What?”

“A bullet.”

“Peter!”

“Yes.  Your luck-piece stopped it, or I shouldn’t be here.”

“There,” said Leonore triumphantly, “I said you weren’t hurt, when the news of the shooting came, because I knew you had it.  I was so glad you had taken it!”

“I am going to give it back to you by and by,” said Peter.

“I had rather that you should have it,” said Leonore.  “I want you to have my luck.”

“I shall have it just the same even after I’ve given it to you,” said Peter.

“How?”

“I’m going to have it made into a plain gold ring,” replied Peter, “and when I give it to you, I shall have all your luck.”

Then came a silence.

Finally Peter said, “Will you please tell me what you meant by talking about five years!”

“Oh!  Really, Peter,” Leonore hastened to explain, in an anxious way, as if Peter had charged her with murder or some other heinous crime.  “I did think so.  I didn’t find it out till—­till that night.  Really!  Won’t you believe me?”

Peter smiled.  He could have believed anything.

“Now,” he said, “I know at last what Anarchists are for.”

His ready acceptance of her statement made Leonore feel a slight prick of conscience.  She said:  “Well—­Peter—­I mean—­that is—­at least, I did sometimes think before then—­that when I married, I’d marry you—­but I didn’t think it would come so soon.  Did you?  I thought we’d wait.  It would have been so much more sensible!”

“I’ve waited a long time,” said Peter.

“Poor dear!” said Leonore, putting her other hand over Peter’s, which held hers.

Peter enjoyed this exquisite pleasure in silence for a time, but the enjoyment was too great not to be expressed So he said;