"There is something that I have been wanting to tell you," she began, before she was well aware that she spoke--"something that I don't know exactly how to say, or whether I ought to say it at all." Von Klausen was openly concerned. "If you are in doubt," he replied, "perhaps it would be better if you first thought more about it." But his opposition, though totally the reverse to what she had expected, clinched her resolve. "No," she said. "I ought to tell you about it. Now that I have started I know I ought. It's--it's about that time in the fog." Von Klausen's colour mounted. Then, politely, he pretended to forget the incident. "Yes, don't you remember? You must remember." "I remember. It was a very sudden fog." "Well," she said, "it was about what happened then. I must speak to you--I must explain about that." She was holding tightly to the rail. Von Klausen saw her wrists tremble. He made little of the subject. "When you were frightened, and I took your hand to reassure you? Dear lady, I trust that you have not supposed that I acted on my presumption----" "You're kind to put it that way," she interrupted. "You're generous. But I want to be honest. I have to be honest, because I want you to understand--because you must understand--just why I behaved as I did, and you wouldn't understand--you couldn't--if I weren't honest with you. Captain von Klausen, you didn't take my hand, and you know it. I took yours." He raised the disputed hand; he raised it in protest. "Mrs. Stainton, I assure you that it was I who----" "No, it wasn't. And I wasn't frightened by the fog, either. You must remember that, from the way I spoke; I showed I didn't even realise what a fog means at sea. So how could I be afraid of it? You did know and you had just said that you were afraid of fogs. I took your hand. I did it before I thought----" "Yes, yes, dear Mrs. Stainton"--he was painfully anxious to end all this--"before you thought. It was nothing but a kindly----" "Before I thought," she pursued, determinedly, her dark eyes steady on his. "You had told me of that awful experience of yours in the Bosphorus and of the effect it had on you. No wonder it did have such an effect. I am not blaming you for that. Only, I saw that you needed help and comfort. I was sorry for you. That was all: I was just sorry. I did it without thinking. I didn't know I had done it at all till it was all over. You see," she concluded, "I just couldn't, now, bear to have you misunderstand." Carefully analysed, it might seem a contradictory explanation, but it was no sooner free of her lips than she felt that her soul was free of this thing which she had sought to explain. Von Klausen was quite as much relieved as Muriel. He accepted it as she wished him to accept it. "Never for a moment did I misunderstand," said he. "Then," added Muriel, "you will understand why I haven't mentioned it to my husband----" "Your husband?" The Austrian was all amazement. "Why should you?"