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Rh ence that he was going to be favored with the sequel to the conversation that had been so incongruously broken in upon by Sophia's question respecting the comparative merits of bottle-jacks in the Tottenham Court Road warehouse. This was so far satisfactory, indicating as it did that he was at last, after so much trying back, to make some real progress.

"What I want to know first," Miss Davenport was saying, "is, whether you are capable of facing danger for my sake?"

"I thought," he remonstrated mildly, "that I had already given proof of that!"

"The danger you faced then threatened only me. But, supposing you had to meet a danger to yourself, could you be firm and cool? Much will depend on that."

"I—I think," he answered frankly, "that perhaps you had better not count upon me. I have never been a man to court danger: it might find me equal to it if it came—or it might not."

He did not mean to give it the opportunity.

"Then we are lost, that is all!" she said,