In the sitting-room David Hunter was striding up and down whilst Rosaleen sat on a big square-ended settee watching him. She looked pale and frightened.

"Blackmail!" he muttered. "Blackmail! My God, am I the kind of man to let myself be blackmailed?"

She shook her head, bewildered, troubled.

"If I knew," David was saying. "If I only knew -"

From Rosaleen there came a small miserable sob.

He went on:

"It's this working in the dark - working blindfold -" He wheeled round suddenly. "You took those emeralds round to Bond Street to old Greatorex?"

"Yes."

"How much?"

Rosaleen's voice was stricken as she said:

"Four thousand. Four thousand pounds. He said if I didn't sell them they ought to be reinsured."

"Yes - precious stones have doubled in value. Oh well, we can raise the money. But if we do, it's only the beginning - it means being bled to death - bled, Rosaleen, bled white!"

She cried:

"Oh, let's leave England - let's get away couldn't we go to Ireland - America - somewhere?"

He turned and looked at her.

"You're not a fighter, are you, Rosaleen? Cut and run is your motto."

She wailed: "We're wrong - all this has been wrong - very wicked."

"Don't turn pious on me just now! I can't stand it. We were sitting pretty, Rosaleen. For the first time in my life I was sitting pretty - and I'm not going to let it all go, do you hear? If only it wasn't this cursed fighting in the dark. You understand, don't you, that the whole thing may be bluff - nothing but bluff? Underhay's probably safely buried in Africa as we've always thought he was."

She shivered.

"Don't, David. You make me afraid."

He looked at her, saw the panic in her face, and at once his manner changed. He came over to her, sat down, took her cold hands in his.

"You're not to worry," he said. "Leave it all to me - and do as I tell you. You can manage that, can't you? Just do exactly as I tell you."

"I always do, David."

He laughed. "Yes, you always do. We'll snap out of this, never you fear. I'll find a way of scotching Mr Enoch Arden."

"Wasn't there a poem, David - something about a man coming back -"

"Yes." He cut her short. "That's just what worries me... But I'll get to the bottom of things, never you fear."

She said:

"It's Tuesday night you - take him the money?"

He nodded.

"Five thousand. I'll tell him I can't raise the rest all at once. But I must stop him going to the Cloades. I think that was only a threat, but I can't be sure."

He stopped, his eyes became dreamy, far away. Behind them his mind worked, considering and rejecting possibilities.

Then he laughed. It was a gay reckless laugh. There were men, now dead, who would have recognised it...

It was the laugh of a man going into action on a hazardous and dangerous enterprise. There was enjoyment in it and defiance.