Left alone with Evelyn Forbes, Theydon suddenly grew tongue-tied.  This man who could invent all manner of glib conversation for the characters in his novels now cudgeled his brains vainly for something to say that would dwell in her memory when they parted.  And he knew why a cloud was thus effectually befogging his wits.  He had only seen Evelyn three times in as many days, had spoken to her but twice, yet was hopelessly and irrevocably in love with her.

He, who had so often and so thrillingly described the grand passion of a man’s life, had now fallen a victim to it, only to feel how unutterably ridiculous and impossible was the wild longing that had sprung up in his heart.  Here, by his side, wistfully sympathetic and friendly in manner, sat the “one woman in the world,” yet he felt awkward and constrained, and took refuge in a vague expression of anxiety on behalf of Handyside, a man who at least might be trusted to extricate himself safely from the labyrinth of Eastbourne!

The girl, of course, attributed these disjointed remarks to physical suffering.  In reality, he was contrasting her wealth and his own comparative poverty, and bidding himself fiercely not to be a vain fool!

“Don’t you think you ought to call in a doctor?” she inquired, tenderly.

“No, no,” he hastened to assure her.  “The effects of the blow are passing rapidly.  In another hour I shall hardly feel it at all.  I’m afraid, Miss Forbes,” he ventured to add, “that when this piratical gang is broken up, as certainly will be the case now that the English police are tackling it, you will associate our brief acquaintance with the only dark days in your existence.”

“Why do you say that?” she demanded.

“Because I am bound to admit that if I had not dined at your house on Monday evening, many, if not all, of the amazing events of the past thirty-six hours could not have happened.”

“I don’t agree with you—­ not one little bit,” she protested emphatically.  “Why, the detective-man himself said that the Young Manchus have been searching ever since the beginning of the year for proof of Dad’s connection with the revolutionaries, and he was candid enough to tell us that if it hadn’t been for you that horrid Wong Li Fu would have got me into the car.  No, Mr. Theydon, our meeting has proved most fortunate for me.  Suppose I had really been captured!  Would he have gagged me and taken me away to some lonely place, where I would be kept a prisoner, or even killed?”

Theydon had no desire that her mind should dwell on such a harrowing topic.  He shuddered to think of her fate if ever she fell into the hands of the miscreants who had not scrupled to murder Mrs. Lester.  She evidently regarded the crime in No. 17 Innesmore Mansions as the sequel to some political disturbance in far-off Shanghai.  It had not occurred to her that a hapless woman had been done to death merely as a warning to her father of the fate in store for him and his if he did not yield to the demand of the reactionary party in China, and deliver over to their vengeance some hundreds of the leading men in that distressed country.