“Yesterday,” she said, “I did know. I couldn’t sleep all night. I felt so ill, I thought I was going to die; and all the time it was coming back to me. I couldn’t think why I was there in that place. I was frightened—worse than frightened. The nurse kept calling me ‘Mrs. Quelton,’ and I told her I wasn’t Mrs. Quelton—I was Caroline Enderby. She must have told him. He came, he kept looking at me, and saying, ‘You are Muriel Quelton, I tell you!’ Then he sent the nurse away, and he said: ‘If you insist that you are Caroline Enderby, you’re mad, and I’ll send you to an asylum.’ I was—oh, Lexy, I’m not brave!—I was afraid of him. When you came that morning, I didn’t dare to tell you. I hoped you’d find the handkerchief, and know; and then—”
Suddenly she turned and buried her face in the pillow.
“Then I didn’t want you to know!” she sobbed. “Captain Grey—he sat there with me. Lexy! Lexy! I didn’t know there was any one like him in the world! I wanted to stay, then. I thought, if you found out, I’d have to go away—to go home again, or to marry Charles. I’d promised to marry him, Lexy, but I can’t! Not now!”
“Hush, darling!” said Lexy hastily.
This was something Captain Grey had no right to hear, but he did hear it. He was still standing outside the door, motionless.
“He was so kind!” Caroline went on. “And his face—”
“Never mind that!” Lexy interrupted sternly. “Tell me how you got away.”
“When he came back, he found George there—I had to call him George.”
“Yes, I see. Never mind!”
“George went away, and then—he told me. He said his wife had died a few months ago, and that in her will she’d left some jewel—a ruby—”