"Understand what?"
"Why Bellaria Dondi, who was a famous singer, should bury herself in a lonely Devonshire house, to keep a sane girl prisoner."
"You have been listening!" she cried out in terror. "How do you know that I was a singer?"
"I heard you sing the Shadow Song from Dinorah during one of my visits; and, when hidden behind the beech-tree near the wall, I heard you say that you had been a great singer."
Bellaria covered her face with two thin hands, and the tears fell through her fingers. "I was great! I was famous!" she sobbed. "I was happy until jealousy undid me. But," she let her hands drop and flung back her queenly head, "I only did what any Italian woman would have done. He betrayed me, why should I not betray him?"
"Major Rebb?"
"No! Enrico Salviati, who swore that he loved me, yet left me for another. But I punished him. He died, and perhaps I shall die as he did, for all my care. They will find me, and then----Oh, what agonies I have suffered for many, many years! This face," she struck it, "was handsome. Enrico loved it. These lips--Enrico kissed them--with the kiss of Judas. And what better am I? What better am I?" She rushed to the mirror over the mantelpiece to address herself. "Bellaria Dondi, you can hide in the depths of the sea, but they will find you. You can----Augh!" her eyes fell on the silver cigarette-case of Mrs. Crosbie, upon which lay, delicately, the clenched coral hand with the dagger. "Augh!" she repeated, and staggered back.
"What is the matter?" Gerald rose and came forward.
Bellaria repelled him with both hands, shaking with dread. "Keep back, you English spy! You have brought me here! You are one of them. But if you use the knife I shall scream. Keep back! Keep back!"
"I don't understand," gasped Haskins, amazed at this outburst.