"Not empty. No. There was something there. Will you come to my cabin and see what it was? Don't look frightened. There's nothing to alarm you. And—Princess, the rest of the plan you gave me has been—carried out. Thanks to your woman's wit, I believe that my future and Shelagh's is clear. And, before Heaven, my conscience is clear, too."
"Oh, Roger, it's thanks to your own courage more than to me. Is—is all safe?"
"The coffin—isn't empty now. It is fastened up, just as it was. The broken rope is round it again. It's covered with the tarpaulin as before. No one outside the secret would guess it had been disturbed. There's no maker's mark to trace it by. I owe more than my life—I owe my very soul—to you. For I haven't much fear of what may come at St. Heliers to-morrow or after."
"Nor I. Oh, I am thankful, for Shelagh's sake even more than yours, if possible. Her heart would have broken. Now she need never know."
"She must know—and choose. I shall tell her—everything I did. Only I need not bring you into it."
"If you tell her about yourself, you must tell her about me," I said. "I'd like to be with you when you speak to her—if you think you must speak."
"I'm sure I must. If all goes well to-morrow, she can marry me without fear of scandal—if she's willing to marry me, after what I've done to-night."
"She will be. And she shall hear from me that this woman who killed herself and our spy of the Abbey were one. As for to-morrow—all must go well! But—the thing you found—in the coffin. You'll have to dispose of it somehow."
"It's for you to decide about that—I think."
"For me? What can it have to do with me?"