"I hardly know," she almost whispered, and I felt her trembling strangely. "Somehow I feel nervous, frightened. I feel as if some danger were approaching—approaching both of us." Again she looked about her. Then, as I spoke soothingly, she gradually grew calmer. "I was very, very fond of Connie Stapleton, you know," she said presently, "and I thought that she liked me. That time, at Holt, when you warned me to beware of her, I felt as if I hated you. She influenced me so strangely, Mike,—I cannot explain how. Mike, my darling, I tell you this now because somehow I feel you will forgive me, as at last it's all over. It seems so odd now to think of it, but as I grew to love her my love for you seemed to grow less—I knew from the first that she detested my loving you so, and if I spoke much about you to her it annoyed her. She wanted to destroy my love for you, Mike, but never, all the time I have been with her, did I say a word against you. Do you believe me when I tell you that?" Later she told me that the woman had quite recently hinted at her doing certain things she hardly dared to think about, and that, the very day before, she had disclosed a horrible plan which she had formulated, in which Dulcie was to play a very important part—a plan to do with a robbery on a very extensive scale. "Oh, Mike, Mike," she went on, "I must have been mad during these past weeks to have listened to what she hinted at—I was mad, or else she had completely hypnotized me. You remember Mr. Osborne's being taken to that house in Grafton Street, and kept there in confinement, and the telegram I received that was supposed to come from you? Well, I know now who it was who kept him there a prisoner, and came to him in the dark, and questioned him, and tried to get him to reveal information which he alone could give. The man who did all that was—" A footstep just behind us made us both turn quickly. A faint light still shone along the almost dark deck. Before I could recognize the figure, before I had time to speak, Dulcie had sprung suddenly forward and gripped the muffled man by the arm. "Father!" she exclaimed under her breath, with difficulty controlling her emotion, "father, what are you doing here?" CHAPTER XXVI "THAT WOMAN!" Sir Roland, whose appearance the cap pulled over his eyes had partly disguised, made a motion with his hand, enjoining silence. Then, linking Dulcie's arm in his, he walked slowly towards the saloon entrance. I walked beside them, but for the moment nobody spoke. We presently found ourselves in a small, deserted room, apparently a card room. Here, after carefully shutting the door, Sir Roland seated himself. Then he indicated the seats that he wished us each to occupy, for he was rather deaf.