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Show 1he RETURN .TRENT v kfh WYNDHAM COPYRIGHT by 8AR5E &. HOPKIN5 W.NU SERVICE CHAPTER XIV Continued 30 "1 don't think there'll be any need to," Trent returned. "I'm not a simple sim-ple and reckless optimist. It means 1 know my man." Had there been anyone to observe Trent as he telephoned to Mr. Hill a little after midnight, that rare quality hesitancy might have been noticed In one who was rarely In doubt and always quick to act Mr. Hill's voice came' back almost instantly. "You've seen that diamond for the : last time,", said Mr. Hill. "What do you mean?" Trent demanded. de-manded. "Simply tnat a cable was dispatched to his royal highness late this afternoon after-noon that a messenger was bringing the Nizam's diamond to him as fast as an airplane and the Mauretanla could accomplish the trip. What you ask has been arranged and you'll have to be at my office tomorrow morning at ten. Good-by and good luck to you both." Victory! Trent walked to the hotel window and looked over the city now growing stllL The same restful quiet was stealing over him. How curiously things worted out, he reflected. Life seemed a matter of adjustments, compromises, com-promises, equations, logical and satisfying satis-fying when one understood them. The appointment at Mr. Hill's office, his interview with members of another department, and the final triumph caused him to lose the noon train. Only a few minutes were left of the forty-eight hours when he entered his apartment. Mademoiselle Dupin, already al-ready dressed for going out, was waiting wait-ing Impatiently. "You were just going?" he demanded, de-manded, looking at the clock. "You wouldn t have given me live minutes' grace?" "Mrs. Kinney has secured a position for me, and I have a train to catch." "Sewing?" he asked. "I am to teach French and music to some children. I have been very fortunate." for-tunate." "From your point of view, perhaps. Mademoiselle Dupin, you can't go just yet; your class must wait. I have a great deal to talk about." "But the train," she protested. "It Is to Greenwich I go." "Greenwich has an admirable train service; take another." She could not understand his mood. Although his words were peremptory he was looking at her with a smile. How, she wondered, passionately, could he smile at her when she was trying to go where she might be able to forget him? "You are going to teach other people's peo-ple's children because you think that Is the only way to obtain peace of mind. Yoa won't succeed that way. You may change your place of abode, but yoa can't forget your dread of the police any more in Greenwich than you did In Deal Beach." "1 would rather do that than what you suggest," she said, , her head held high. "If 1 were to take even a little stolen money my last chance of living honestly would be gone. I am even more sorry for you than for myself. I thought you were in earnest You have so many talents that It Is tragical trag-ical you should go back to that life." "And so you won't shake hands when you leave me?" "Monsieur," she cried, "what use would that be? Our ways lie so far apart. I am resolved to work for what 1 need. It will not be easy, but I shall do it It is possible I may starve, but 1 will not steal. Is there nothing I can say to influence yon? You tell me you have lost your money. Well, It was generously spent, and 1 shall never be happy until 1 can pay you back what I have cost. You tell yourself that you will win a competence com-petence and then give np this life. That will bring yon to ruin. It Is the reef upon which yoo will bv wrecked." "I believe that, too," he said meditatively. medita-tively. "I wouldn't care to risk it again." "But you will not need to," sne said, with something of scorn In her voice, "you have the Nizam's diamond." He smiled at her In the frank, boyish boy-ish fashion she had seen In him only once or twice. "I've lost It," he said. "Lost It?" she repeated. "Let us say exchanged It" His face became graver. "You must listen to me very carefully. Can you imagine that 1, Anthony Trent, who has been what you know only too well, should have put all t lie Allied governments under obligations to me? It's true nevertheless. What I did was of a nature na-ture so secret that it could not be published. pub-lished. 1 received no reward from my jiovenimrjt 1 wasn't officially thanked The only thing that I po't from it was trie friendship of oi:r ambassador am-bassador to Su James' and n sort ot promise ih-u ii ever I were In a tii-hi place 1 had something to trade with. I never dared ask him just why be should imagine I might ever need such help. I've just come back from Washington, Wash-ington, Mademoiselle Dupin." , "I do not see how that concerns me," she murmured. "You will," he retorted. "The man I went to see was a cabinet officer. When I last knew him he was our ambassador am-bassador to England. I reminded him of that veiled promise. I told him, frankly, I'd come to make a deal witli him. I said 1 would give him back a certain historic diamond stolen from a visiting royalty several years ago if all the warrants against the woman who took it were quashed. He wanted to know how 1 could be sure that this woman would not do the same sort of thing again. He doubted If people of that sort could be relied upon." "Ari'd what did yon say?" Mademoiselle Mademoi-selle Dupin cried, eagerly. "I told bim I had put her to the supreme test and that she had come through." "How do you mean a test?" she exclaimed. "My offer to have the diamond cut and share the proceeds with you." "I am bewildered," she cried. "1 cannot understand yet. If you spoke as you did to test me, then you have not gone back to the old life?" "Never again," he told her. "And 1 have doubted you. I am ashamed." "You hadn't any alternative," he declared. de-clared. "The main thing for you to understand is . that the warrants against yon have been qunshed. The vast machinery that had set itself to enmesh you has been stopped. In the United States, at all events, you are free from arrest for what you did." "Answer me this, please," she said anxiously. "Can you go to the cabinet officer If anything is discovered about you In future?" "That," he said evasively, "will have to be considered when the time arrives." ar-rives." She shook her head. "1 see it very clearly now," she said. "Yon have given me what would have saved you. How can I thank you for. that? It is Impossible. One thanks for the little courtesies of life. 1 am overwhelmed 1" She covered her face with her gloved hands. She was free. Through all the broad land there were no police empowered em-powered to recognize and arrest her. "I haven't told you the truth, always," al-ways," Anthony Trent said. "I have plenty of money. I'm not ruined in anything but hope." She smiled for the first time, and there were tears In her eyes. The clock struck the hour. "There goes my train to Green which," she said. "Aren't you sorry to hear 1 am bankrupt?" bank-rupt?" he asked. "But only of hope," she answered. "That is not serious. It springs eternal, eter-nal, one is told." He smiled a little ruefully as he looked down at her. '"You don't even want to hear what hopes they are,"1 he complained "You are not making It easy." "What hopes are they?' she said softly. Suddenly he knelt by the. side of her chair. "Vera," he whispered, "1 love you. It was because of that I had to put you to that test Forgive me. Look at me, my dear, I cannot bear this silence." "What would you have me say?' There was something caressing in hei voice which set his heart beating mad ly. "That I love yon? Thai I could i say, gladly. But If I did, would you I believe me?" (THE END |