"Are you sane yourself?" asked Haskins, turning the tables on her. The woman reared herself in her chair, gripping the arms, and directed a fierce gaze at him. "What do you mean?" she demanded. "Why did you not come out and face me when Mavis talked with me in the garden?" he remarked, meeting her gaze firmly and fairly. "Because--because---- Oh, there is no explanation." "I think there is. You dare not venture out after dark, so you waited until Mavis entered the house to question her." "How do you know that I dare not venture out after dark?" she asked, and her figure seemed to dwindle and shrink. "Mavis told me." "Mavis knows nothing, nothing, do you hear? God forbid that she should ever know anything. But my business is my own business, and has nothing to do with you, Prince Gerald. Mavis is crazy: she would kill you as soon as look at you, at certain times." "I don't believe that for one moment." "You must--you shall! If Mavis is not mad, why should her guardian shut her up in a lonely house?" "That," said Gerald very dryly, "is what I went to Major Rebb's rooms to ask when I met you." Bellaria arose, much astonished. "You will dare to face the Major?" Haskins laughed. "Do you take me for a schoolgirl? Of course I shall face the Major, and a dozen like him if necessary." "You are a brave man." "And Major Rebb? What is he?" "The kindest and best friend that a miserable woman ever had," retorted the woman fiercely, "not a word against the Major. I won't hear a word, I tell you. What he does is right." "Not in shutting up Mavis." "She is mad, I tell you; mad and dangerous." Bellaria came close to where Gerald was sitting and looked down into his face with a determined expression. "On learning what I did learn from Mavis I came up at once to tell Major Rebb, so that he might stop it." "I fear Major Rebb will find it somewhat difficult to stop it. He is not the Ruler of the Earth, so far as I know." "He is my ruler," cried Bellaria grandiloquently. "So I should think, when the mere wish to give him information makes you risk----" "Risk what? Risk what?" she demanded, quivering. Haskins shrugged his square shoulders. "Your life, for all I know." She stood looking at him with clenched hands, the expression on her worn face hovering between terror and defiance. "You talk of what you do not understand," she said, breathing hard. "Quite right: but I should like to understand." "Understand what?" "Why Bellaria Dondi, who was a famous singer, should bury herself in a lonely Devonshire house, to keep a sane girl prisoner." "You have been listening!" she cried out in terror. "How do you know that I was a singer?" "I heard you sing the Shadow Song from _Dinorah_ during one of my visits; and, when hidden behind the beech-tree near the wall, I heard you say that you had been a great singer."