Neither spoke for a few moments. At last he added, "What shall I do
next?"

"Do?" she repeated. She felt now the weight of responsibility for
interfering with his desperate plans, but it did not oppress her. On
the contrary, it was a pleasant burden. "According to your own
story," she went on, "they know nothing yet, as far as you can see.
You would have forestalled them by taking this little vacation
during which you could disappear while they would discover the
shortage. Do? Go back."

"And when they discover it?" he asked evidently prepared for the
answer she had given and eager to know what she would propose next.

Constance had been thinking rapidly.

"Listen," she cried, throwing aside restraint now. "No one in New
York outside my former little circle knows me. I can live there in
another circle unobserved. For weeks I have been amusing myself by
the study of shorthand. I have picked up enough to be able to carry
the thing off. Discharge your secretary. Put an advertisement in the
newspapers. I will answer it. Then I will be able to help you. I
cannot say at a distance what you should do next. There, perhaps, I
can tell you."

What was it that had impelled her to say it? She could not have
told. Murray looked at her. Her very presence seemed to infuse new
determination into him.