"There were many dinners, Major Bishop." Woodhouse was carefully selecting his words, and he broke his sentences with a sip from his cup. "Seven years is a long time, you know. We had much else to think about in Egypt than old dinners elsewhere." Bishop appeared struck by an inspiration. He clapped his cup into its saucer with a sudden bang. "Hang it, man, you must have been here in the days of Lady Evelyn. Remember her, don't you?" "Would I be likely to forget?" the captain parried. Out of the tail of his eye he had a flash of Jane Gerson's white face, of her eyes seeking his with a palpitant, hunted look. The message of her eyes brought to him an instant of grace in sore trial. "Seven years of Egypt--or of a hotter place--couldn't make a man forget her!" The major was rattling on for the benefit of those who had not come under the spell of the charmer. "Sir David Craigen's wife, and as lovely a woman as ever came out from England. Every man on the Rock lost his heart that spring. Woodhouse, even in three months' time you must have fallen like the rest of us." "I'd rather not incriminate myself." Woodhouse smiled sagely as he passed his cup to Lady Crandall to be refilled. "Don't blame you," Bishop caught him up. "A most outrageous flirt, and there was the devil to pay. Broken hearts were as thick on the Rock that year as strawberries in May, including poor Craigen's. And after one young subaltern tried to kill himself--you'll remember that, Woodhouse--Sir David packed the fair charmer off to England. Then he simply ate his heart out and--died." "What an affecting picture!" Jane commented. "One lone woman capturing the garrison of Gibraltar!" General Crandall rose to set his cup on the tea wagon. With the most casual air in the world, he addressed himself to Woodhouse: "When Sir David died, many of his effects were left in this house to await their proper owner's disposition, and Lady Craigen has been--er--delicate about claiming them. Among them was the portrait of Lady Craigen herself which still hangs in this room. Have you recognized it, Captain?" Woodhouse, whose mind had been leaping forward, vainly trying to divine the object of the Lady Evelyn lead, now knew, and the knowledge left him beyond his resources. He recognized the moment of his unmasking. But the man's nerve was steady, even in extremity. He rose and turned to face the rear wall of the library, against the tapestry of which hung four oil portraits in their deep old frames of heavy gold. Three of these were of women. A fourth, also the likeness of a woman, hung over the fireplace. Chances were four to one against blind choice.