It was my own turn to feel surprise, which perhaps I showed.
"I have told no one. It seemed to me that first I ought to come to you and ask you about this. Why was Orme there?"
She stared at me. "He told me he would come back some time," she admitted at length. All the while she was fighting with herself, striving, exactly as Orme had done, to husband her powers for an impending struggle. "You see," she added, "he has secret business all over the country—I will own I believe him to be in the secret service of the inner circle of a number of Southern congressmen and business men. He is in with the Southern circle—of New Orleans, of Charleston—Washington. For this reason he could not always choose his hours of going and coming."
"Does your father know of his peculiar hours?"
"I presume so, of course."
"I saw a light at a window," I began, "whose window I do not know, doubtless some servant's. It could not have been a signal?"
"A signal? What do you mean? Do you suspect me of putting out a beacon light for a cheap night adventure with some man? Do you expect me to tolerate that sort of thing from you?"
"I ask you to tolerate nothing," I said. "I am not in the habit of suspecting ladies. But I ask you if you can explain the light on that side of the house."
"Jack," she said, flinging out a hand, "forgive me. I admit that Captain Orme and I carried on a bit of a flirtation, after he came back—after he had told me about you. But why should that—why, he did not know you were here."
"No," said I, dryly, "I don't think he did. I am glad to know that you found something to amuse you in my absence."