She thought he would have struck her, but he restrained himself and left the room without a word, locking the door behind him; and for a moment Nancy’s heart sank. She was thinking not of herself but of Jagger. “He can’t hurt him,” she repeated. “Maniwel’ll see to that!” Subconsciously there was the feeling that Maniwel was in favour with the high court of Heaven, and that his influence would shield his son. “I must get word to Jagger somehow,” she said to herself. “What James is up to I can’t think; but he’ll finish the job to-night if I’m out o’ the way, and he ought to be watched. “He’s locked me up, has he?” she went on a moment later, as a faint smile overspread her face “Love laughs at locksmiths and so does hate.” CHAPTER XXVIII IN WHICH MANIWEL AND JAGGER JOIN IN THE GAME INMAN’S mind took holiday from the work on which his hands were employed that day, and busied itself in shaping a course of action that would meet the requirements of the moment. He was disturbed to find that the machinery was not adequate to its task, that it moved slowly and during long periods was entirely unproductive. Nancy’s attitude puzzled him, but it did more: it gave him greater concern than the circumstances, as he construed them, warranted. Not for one moment would he allow himself to believe that she had followed him to Gordale, for he was of that number of men, themselves superior to superstitious fears and unafraid of the terror by night in its most gruesome forms or haunts, who assume that all women are cowards in the dark and the ready prey of silly fears; and hold them to be constitutionally incapable of adventuring alone in Erebus. There were moments when he persuaded himself that her own simple explanation was the right one, and she had been merely restless, and then he cursed himself for having shown his hand. But his reason, as well as prejudice and apprehension, refused to entertain the thought long; her eyes had given the lie to her lips. He dismissed, too, though less quickly, the reflection that mere curiosity, the very natural desire of a wife to discover what takes her husband abroad at night, had led her to follow him. His lip curled with something like satisfaction as it occurred to him that she perhaps suspected another intrigue! But the revolution of the machine always brought back his thoughts to Jagger. It was for her lover she was working—the lover whom he had injured but neither disheartened nor destroyed, and who no doubt found means of pouring his complaints into her sympathetic ears. It was intuition rather than reason that led him to the right conclusion, and told him that though he might throw dust in Stalker’s eyes and make that credulous fool drunk with flattery and greed, he could not deceive his wife. She knew both husband and lover too well to misjudge either.