"I shall be ready in a few minutes"; and she ran off with the packet.
"Tell me how you have managed it, Paul. It seems like a miracle," said Althea.
I put my arm about her. "I found out things that beat him, and you will have no more trouble through him."
"Ah, there you must have patience. I am pledged not to speak for twenty-tour hours, in order to give him time to leave the country."
"He will not go," she answered instantly, shaking her head vigorously.
"He dare not stay. If you love me, nothing now can come between us."
"If? Paul!" and she put her arms round my neck; and what followed concerned nobody but ourselves. But when she drew away it was to shake her head doubtingly. "I do not trust him."
"Him? No; but his fear, yes. I tell you he dare not play me false."
"Pray Heaven it will all be right; but I still fear for you, Paul."
"It will be as surely as I kiss you now," I whispered. "And now can you get your father to leave? There is no absolute need now, thank Heaven; but while I am doing what I have to do, it would be best for him to be out of the city."
"And you?" she asked with quick solicitude.
"I shall be all right. I hold all the winning cards, whatever happens."
Her dear face clouded and her brows puckered with a frown as she shook her head. "I could not go if you were to remain. I will not, at least until I know that all is right with you. Nor indeed could I if I would. My father has been in a terrible state for some hours. I told him what you suggested--that the scheme had failed, you know--and he wanted to rush out of the house on the instant. I only stopped him by pointing out the police to him."
"They are gone, I am glad to say. Von Felsen himself gave me a note calling them away. What’s that?" I broke off, as a sound upstairs reached us, followed a moment afterwards by the shutting of a door.
"Of course. I forgot; but I have been a bit strung up by the night’s business. I was going to say that you had better not tell your father the police have been removed. If he will not leave the city, he is safest here." I hurried away then to put von Felsen’s confessions and the keys I had taken from him in safe hiding, and soon after that Bessie came down and we started for the station.