"But the _Ten Brothers_ was a schooner," urged Charnock. "I was told only a few weeks ago at Gibraltar--one of the Salcombe--oh yes, that's true too. I suggested to Wilbraham--to Wilbraham who said he was familiar with the look of the boat--I suggested to him that the _Tarifa_ was one of the Salcombe clippers." "Yes. Wilbraham had known Ralph at Gibraltar, had seen the _Ten Brothers_, very likely had been aboard of her. That was why the look of the _Tarifa_ was familiar to him. When you told him the _Tarifa_ was a Salcombe boat he understood why it was familiar. It was the merest clue; but he followed it up and found out." "And blackmailed you!" continued Charnock. He turned back to the writing-table and the window. Again his fingers played idly with the newspaper. For a while he was silent; then he said slowly, "Do you remember what you said to me on the balcony? That no man could offer a woman help without doing her a hurt in some other way." "I spoke idly," interrupted Miranda. "You spoke very truly, for here's the proof." "I spoke to elude you," said Miranda, stubbornly. "It was a mere idle fancy which came into my head, and the next moment was forgotten." "But I remembered it," cried Charnock. "It was more true than you thought." "It was no more true than"--she hesitated. However, Charnock was not looking at her; she found it possible to proceed--"than another belief which led me astray, as this one is leading you." "What other belief?" Miranda nerved herself to answer him. "That no man would serve a woman well, except for--for the one reason." The nature of that reason was apparent to Charnock from the very tone in which she spoke the word. "And you believed that?" he asked. In a movement of surprise he had knocked the newspaper off the writing-table. Underneath the newspaper was a book. "I did believe it," she replied, her face rosy with confusion, "for a few mad miserable days," and she checked herself suddenly, for she saw that Charnock had absently opened and was absently turning over the leaves of the book. "Was the message of your mirror after all so false?" she whispered. He turned towards her, with a face quite illumined. He did not, however, leave the table, and he kept the pages of the book open with his fingers. "Then after all you do need help?" he cried. "Need it?" she returned with a loud cry, and she stretched out hands across the table towards him. "Indeed, indeed I need it, I desperately need it! I sent the glove because I needed it." "Then the glove was no sham?" "It was not the glove that you tore; that was thrown away, but not by me. I searched for it, it was not to be found. So I tore the other and sent it as a substitute." "And when I came, waited to discover," he added, "whether the one reason held me to your service. I understand."