Corriston said, "It was a very courageous thing for you to do."
"I'm glad you think so, darling. Because when I came out of the lounge and saw Ewers killed, I wasn't courageous at all. I became panic-stricken, terrified, beside myself with fear. I knew that my father had many dangerous enemies. I knew that I was in immediate, deadly danger. I had to go on with the disguise then. I had to go right on being somebody else. I couldn't tell anyone. I couldn't even tell you. I had to let you think that in some strange, bewildering way I had gone into the lounge and disappeared.
"I knew you wouldn't really believe that, not for a moment. But I didn't know what you'd think. I could have told you, I suppose, but I was afraid it would only make the danger greater, might transfer some of the danger to you. And I didn't know you'd go straight to the captain and get yourself into trouble. There were rumors on the Station that you'd been confined, put under guard. But they were only rumors. I felt I had to see you, talk to you. I was half out of my mind with anxiety. I bribed one of the guards to let me out of the quarantine cage and went in search of you.
"I searched everywhere, followed passageways at random, got lost in a maze of machinery."
"And someone followed you," Corriston said. "He followed you and tore the mask from your face."
She looked at him with wide, startled eyes. "How did you know?"
"I was there," Corriston said. "You fainted and I took you into my arms—for the very first time. You didn't know that, did you?"
"How could I have known? If what you say is true, I—"
Helen Ramsey did not complete what she had started to say. Had she done so she might not have been thrown so abruptly off-balance by the suddenly lurching deck; she would have moved closer to Corriston and could have seized hold of his shoulders for support.
She did not fall, but she nearly did, and the lurch sent her tottering all the way to the opposite wall. Corriston saw her collide with the wall and sink to her knees. At the same instant his own knees collapsed.