"Yes. You forgot us both. You met him again; you did not remember that you had ever seen him, but none the less, the memory was latent in you, and recalled me to you too. You could not trace the association, but it was very clear to me."
"Wait, wait!" said Charnock. He sat with his elbows on the table and the palms of his hands tightly pressed upon his eyes. "I can see you, as clearly as I saw you then at Monte Carlo, as though you were standing there, now, in the room and I in the room was watching you. You were a little apart from the table, you were standing a few feet behind the croupier at one end of the table. But Ralph Warriner! Was he amongst the players? Wait! Let me think!"
Charnock remained silent. Miranda did not interrupt him, and in a little he began again, piecing together his memories, revivifying that scene in the gambling-room seven years ago. "I can see the lamps with their green shades, I can see the glow of light upon the green table beneath the lamps. I can see the red diamond, the yellow lines upon the cloth, the three columns of numbers in the middle, the crowd about the table, some seated, others leaning over their chairs. But their faces! Their faces!" and then he suddenly cried out, "Ah! He was seated, in front of you, next to the croupier. You were behind him," and in his excitement he reached out his arm towards her, and with shaking fingers bade her speak.
"Yes," said she, "I was behind him."
"You moved to him. I understand now. His back was towards me at the first--when I first saw you, when our eyes met. It was that vision of you, the first, which I carried away, it was that only which I remembered--you standing alone there. It was that which came back to me when I saw your face in my mirror, just the picture of you as you stood alone, distinct from the flowers in your hat to the tip of your shoe, before you moved to the table, before you laid your hand on Ralph Warriner's shoulder, before he turned to answer you and so showed me his face. I remember, indeed. I saw his hand first of all. It was reached out holding his stake. I can even remember that he laid his stake on impare and then he turned to you. Yes, yes, it's true," and Charnock rose from the table in his agitation, and walked once or twice across the room. "It was Ralph Warriner I met at Plymouth, and because of that trivial, ridiculous quarrel, I told you that he lived!"
He stopped suddenly in front of the writing-table, and stood staring out through the window, while his fingers idly played with a newspaper which lay upon the desk.
"But Major Wilbraham," said Miranda, thinking to lessen his remorse, "Major Wilbraham told me too, and only a month later; he came to me in the Cathedral at Ronda here, and told me. He would have told me in any case."
"Wilbraham!" said Charnock. "Yes, that's true. How did he find out? Who told Wilbraham?" and he turned eagerly towards Miranda.
Miranda stammered and faltered. She had not foreseen the question, and she tried to evade it. "He found out. He used his wits. He saw there was profit in the discovery if he could--"
"If he could make the discovery. I understand that; but how did he make the discovery?"