He folded up the notes, and placing them in his pocket, became very stern again.
“Now, Lady Ardane,” he said solemnly, “it is evident that we are up against very determined men. But as we have seen, they will resort to any means to obtain their ends. The sanctity of life is apparently nothing to them, and they will take any act of violence in their stride, as a matter of course. Unhappily, too, up to now they have been in a position to forestall every move that you have made to protect yourself.” He nodded emphatically. “Well, we are going to stop all that, and now I am going to be an unknown force working against them, in exactly the same way as they have been an unknown force working against you.”
He broke off suddenly and said, “I am taking it for granted, as Mr. Jones told me, that n
