But he did nothing. Her hand lay passive in his, and he waited while she recounted the details of the night journey from Somersetshire to the North. Then, when she came to the final scene of her father's death, passion surged through his veins, and he rose from his seat on the bed and paced the limits of the room. "The treacherous devils!" he muttered. "The hounds! Gad! they could not beat him, so they played upon a woman, a defenseless woman. It was German. But they have paid--both of them. But the old man! The pity--the pity of it. If I could only have saved him." Ruxton was not addressing her, but Vita was following his every word. Now she caught at his final sentence. "No one could," she said, with a deep sigh. "I led him to that place of death, as surely as----" "No, no, Vita! You must not say that. You are no more responsible for his death than I am. Those devils would have got him. If not in one way, then in another. He knew it. He was prepared for it. He told me himself. No, no, you did right. If there were shortcomings they were mine. I did not see far enough. Thank God, at least I contrived to save you from the fate they had prepared for you." Vita's eyes had followed his restless movement. Now they rested upon his flushed face and hot eyes as he returned to his seat on the bed and took possession of her hand again. "Thank God for your life and safety, dearest," he cried, raising her hand to his lips and pressing it to them passionately. "It was the nearest thing. It turns me cold now when I think how near. Listen and I'll tell you my side of it all. It's not a very brainy side, dear. There's not much in it that's particularly creditable to any thinking man. Most of it was luck, a sort of miraculous good fortune added to an inspiration for which I mustn't take any credit. I'll just take up the tale where you left it, but from the other side--the side whence you might well have expected succor, and from which, very nearly, there was none forthcoming." He paused. He leant over on the bed, supporting himself on one arm. His dark eyes were shining as they dwelt upon the well-loved beauty of the woman who was, perhaps, at that moment, more than ever the centre of his life. "I can't tell how I arrived at the certainty that you were in the power of these devils, and were being forced unwittingly to further their schemes. It was instinct, it was--well, whatever you like to call it. There's no need to worry you with the manner in which I persuaded your father to let me watch over him in his going from these shores. Nor does it matter the small things I prepared for that watch. I'll just tell you what happened.