"Let us hear!" said Hanaud patiently.
"I began to dream of that room, the two men disguised and masked, the still figure in the bed. Night after night! I was terrified to go to sleep. I felt the hand upon my mouth. I used to catch myself falling asleep, and walk about the room with all the lights up to keep myself awake."
"But you couldn't," said Hanaud with a smile. "Only the old can do that."
"No, I couldn't," she admitted; "and--oh, my nights were horrible until"--she paused and looked at her companions doubtfully--"until one night the mask slipped."
"What--?" cried Hanaud, and a note of sternness rang suddenly in his voice. "What are you saying?"
With a desperate rush of words, and the colour staining her forehead and cheeks, Joan Carew continued:
"It is true. The mask slipped on the face of one of the men--of the man who held me. Only a little way; it just left his forehead visible--no more."
"Well?" asked Hanaud, and Mr. Ricardo leaned forward, swaying between the austerity of criticism and the desire to believe so thrilling a revelation.
"I waked up," the girl continued, "in the darkness, and for a moment the whole scene remained vividly with me--for just long enough for me to fix clearly in my mind the figure of the apache with the white forehead showing above the mask."
"When was that?" asked Ricardo.