It would almost seem that Seymour Michael divined his thoughts, at least
in part.
"There are two reasons," he went on to say, "why absolute secrecy is
necessary; first, for Agar's own sake. He is, of course, in disguise. No
one suspects that he is there, and that is his only safeguard in the
country where he is. Secondly--but I want your whole attention, please."
"Yes, I am listening."
Seymour Michael leant forward and emphasised his remark by tapping on the
table with his gloved finger.
"The mission is so extremely dangerous that it comes almost to the same
thing."
"What do you mean?" inquired Arthur Agar, whose gentle intellect only
compassed subtleties of the drawing-room type.
"I mean that Jem Agar is almost as good as a dead man, although he was
not killed at Pregalla."
The man who had wept in this same room six weeks before looked up with a
gleam of something very like hope in his troubled eyes. Such is the power
of love. For Arthur Agar had not been ignorant of the probability that in
his step-brother, once dead but now living, he had had a rival.
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