The muscles of Trent's jaw tightened visibly as she pronounced the word. Otherwise he was expressionless, still staring at the bracelet. Why didn't he move or say something, she wondered? It was maddening, the way he kept silence!
"The picture of Captain Manlove," she resumed, "as I last saw him in the doorway haunted me. I thought of a hundred things that might happen if it were learned that I had gone to your bungalow just before—before his death. So"—there was a bitter note in her voice—"so I left within two hours, buying a ticket to Mughal Sarai instead of to Benares."
For the first time he asked a question; but he did not raise his eyes.
"You took the coral pendant from my room—there at Benares?"
She nodded. "That piece of coral! It caused me hours of anxiety! The afternoon you arrived I saw it in your hands while you were sitting on the portico. It rather fired my imagination, although I didn't know its significance then. After dinner, when you left the hotel, I tried to follow, but I became hopelessly lost. I had a frightful time finding my way back to the hotel. But I wasn't to be cheated; intrigue was burning in me that night. I borrowed a skeleton key and sent my servant—a man I had hired—to search your room and bring me the piece of coral. Of course, when I found that it opened and that Chavigny's alias was engraved inside, I knew I had a valuable clue. But my servant wasn't able to return it, for when he went back there was a light in your room.... I was in a dilemma. I didn't know what to do."
"But why did you send him to my room in the first place—or follow me to Benares?" he interrupted quietly. "Surely you knew I was on a Government mission and that—I sha'n't mince words—that you were interfering with affairs that didn't concern you."
"Yes, I realize that," she confessed. "Oh, I admit I was wrong—but I had entered the 'Caves of Kor' and the lure of them drew me on."
"I don't mean to be unkind," he broke in, relenting. "I—"
"You are simply telling the truth," she supplied. "I shouldn't have done it, but I deluded myself into believing I might recover the Pearl Scarf and help Alan. I was selfish enough to want him to achieve at the cost of another's failure. That was why I went on to Calcutta. I had no idea where you were going, that next morning at Benares; that is, until I saw a porter take your trunk from your room. Then I sent my servant to find out where it was bound, and—I packed quickly and followed."
"Then you tracked me to the Chinese quarter there, instead of—" He did not finish.