It was our second gun, and though the girl in the yashmak started again, she did not seize my arm. To hold the drama at its instant of suspense, I pretended to be more interested in the effect of the shot than in anything else in the world, as in other circumstances I should have been. I turned to this one and that one, inviting their guesses, noting all the while that over Regina Barry’s eyes there spread the surface fire that a flaming sunset casts on troubled water. She harked back to the subject as soon as it was clear that we had missed our aim again. “Lady Rideover promised me she’d never tell you.” Her tone having become accusatory, I broke in on it with studied nonchalance. “And she never did. To the best of my recollection she never mentioned your name to me. But is there anything wrong in my knowing that you and she are friends?” Color mounted to her brows where the yashmak couldn’t conceal it, though she ignored the question. “And I’m sure it wasn’t your sister Evelyn.” “Why shouldn’t it have been?” “Because she promised me, too. I should be frightfully hurt if I thought she—” “Then I’ll relieve your mind by assuring you that she didn’t. But to me the curious thing is that you shouldn’t have wanted me to know.” She ignored this, too, a furrow of perplexity deepening between her brows. “It isn’t possible that Lady Rideover or Evelyn, without telling you in words, should have allowed you to suspect—” “Not any more than they allowed me to suspect that I was being nursed by a houri out of paradise.” She hastened to make a correction. “Oh, I never acted as nurse to you! It was that Miss Farley.” “But you were at Taplow when I was there, and in and out of my room.” The peculiar light in her eyes, partly of amazement, partly of incredulity, reminded me of a poor trapped lady I had once seen in the prisoner’s dock while a witness recounted the secrets of her life with remarkable exactness of detail. “But you couldn’t see me!” she began, helplessly. “No, but I could hear.” “And you didn’t hear me. If I went into your room, which I didn’t often do—” I launched a theory that was purely inspiration. “Oh, I know. If you came into my room you didn’t make a sound. You arranged that with Mabel. But haven’t you heard that the blind develop an extra sense?” “Not as quickly as that—or with that precision.” She brightened with a new thought. “If your extra sense told you I was there, why didn’t you speak to me?” “Suppose I said that I respected your incognita? If you didn’t want to speak to me it must have been for a reason. I couldn’t ignore that.” Whir-r-r! Z-z-z! P-ff! A shell from the submarine struck the water somewhere near us, though all we saw was a column of white spume on the port side of the ship, while we were on the starboard.