'
'No!' she cried impetuously. 'There, you lie sir, as usual!
The sachet was found, torn open, many leagues from this place!'
'Where I threw it, Mademoiselle,' I replied, 'that I might
mislead your rascals and be free to return to you. Oh! believe
me,' I continued, letting something of my true self, something of
my triumph, appear at last in my voice. 'You have made a
mistake! You would have done better had you trusted me. I am no
bundle of sawdust, Mademoiselle, though once you got the better
of me, but a man; a man with an arm to shield and a brain to
serve, and--as I am going to teach you--a heart also!'
She shivered.
'In the orange-coloured sachet that you lost I believe that there
were eighteen stones of great value?'
She made no answer, but she looked at me as if I fascinated her.
Her very breath seemed to pause and wait on my words. She was so
little conscious of anything else, of anything outside ourselves,
that a score of men might have come up behind her, unseen and
unnoticed.
CHAPTER VIII
A MASTER STROKE--Continued
I took from my breast a little packet wrapped in soft leather,
and I held it towards her.
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