“What do you mean?”
“Sir, may I ask you a question?”
“A thousand, if you will let me have my own property, and be brief enough to let me get to bed within half an hour, for I sorely need rest.”
“Sir—my good master, to whom I owe so much kindness and charity—I am not going to ask this question out of impertinent curiosity, but—but from a sufficiently reasonable and strong motive.”
“Come, let us have the question without further preamble.”
“I will ask you two questions. Did you buy this cross, or was it given to you?”
Captain Desfrayne hesitated before replying, as a man in the witness-box might do for fear of criminating himself.
“It was given to me,” he at length replied.
“By a woman?”
Captain Desfrayne looked keenly at his questioner. The idea that he was a former lover of the beautiful Italian prima donna’s, again occurred to him.