“I can tell you nothing of that. She did not wish you or the people at Cragsfoot to know.” “I daresay not!” Then she went on, quietly but with a cold and scornful impatience. “What do all you men find in the woman? You, Julius, won’t believe the plainest evidence where she’s concerned. Waldo won’t hear her name mentioned; he does recognize the truth about her by now, of course—what she really was—but still he looks as if I were desecrating a grave if I make the most distant reference to the time when he was engaged to her—and really one can’t help occasionally referring to old days! And now even Godfrey seems eaten up with curiosity about her; he’s been trying to pump me about her. I suppose he thinks I don’t see through him, but I do, of course.” “She’s an interesting woman, Nina. Don’t you think so yourself?” “How can she be interesting to Godfrey, anyhow? He’s never seen her. Yet I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if at this moment he’s hunting the Riviera for her!” How sharp she was, how sharp her resentful jealousy made her! “It’s as if you were all in a conspiracy to prevent me from getting that woman out of my head! Well—you don’t make any answer!” “About what?” “About what Godfrey’s doing.” “I know nothing about what he’s doing. There’s what he said in the note he left for you.” She gave an impatient shrug. “Oh, the note he left for me! Why didn’t he tell me face to face? I suppose he could have waited half an hour!” It was plain that Godfrey’s departure—sudden and certainly unceremonious compared with the deference which he had been (indeed, which all of our party were) in the habit of showing towards her—had upset her seriously. She showed me more of her inner mind, of a secret uneasiness which possessed her. It had been lulled to rest by that picture of a helpless and grateful Lucinda; I had shaken her faith in that, or at least my obstinate skepticism had made her faith angry rather than serene, eager to convince the skeptic and thereby to confirm itself anew. After a long pause she spoke again in a much more composed fashion, and even smiling. “Well, Julius, go and see; go and find her, and find out the truth about it. That’ll be the best thing. And you can come back and tell me. In view of Arsenio Valdez’s letter I’m entitled to know their real circumstances, anyhow. Into her secrets I don’t want to pry, but I’ve sent them money on the strength of his letters.” “What I expect is to be able to tell you not to send any more.” “Yes, I know you expect that. But you’ll find yourself wrong about it.” “That’s the ‘issue to be tried,’” I said with a laugh, as I rose from my chair. I was glad to be able to obey the impulse within me without quarreling with Nina. I hoped to be able to carry the whole thing through—wherever it might lead—without that. “You’re off directly?” she asked. “Oh, not this minute. After lunch will be time enough, I think.”