"But," said she, "it would mean your life."
"Have you not said yourself that payment must be made?"
"Yes, but by us," she said, stretching out a hand eagerly. "Not by you alone."
"Madam," said I, "you will have your share in it, for you will have to wait—to wait here with such patience as you can command, ignorant of the issue until the issue is reached. God knows but I think you have the harder part of it."
We stood for a little looking into each other's eyes sealing our compact.
"Now," I continued, "think! Was any word said which we could shape into a clue? Was any name mentioned? Was your husband's name linked with mine? Oh, think, and quickly!"
She sat with her face covered by her hands while I stood anxiously before her.
"I do not remember," she said, drawing her hands apart and shaking them in a helpless gesture. "It all happened so long ago."
"It happened only yesterday," I urged.
"I know, I know," she said with the utmost weariness. All that light of hope had died from her eyes as quickly as it had brightened them. "But I measure by a calendar of pain. It is so long ago, I do not remember. I do not even remember how I returned here."