"All of them were; every single one of them was. They still are, I imagine, providing my cousin is doing her part—and I am sure she is. There'll be no suspicion of the truth, even after their eyes are unhooded. Claire has her explanations all ready. They'll miss this girl of course and wonder what has become of her, but the explanation provides for that: She was taken with a sudden indisposition and slipped away with me, not wishing to spoil the fun by staying on after she began to feel badly. That's the story they'll be told, and there's no reason why they shouldn't accept it as valid either. See! She's coming to."
"Then I'll get out and leave you to attend to her. Keep her here in this room until she's better, and then you may send her back to her hotel. You might tell her that there is to be no prosecution and no unpleasant notoriety for her if only she keeps her mouth shut about all that's happened. Probably she'll be only too glad to do that, for I figure she has learned a lesson."
"You won't want to question her, then, after she has been revived?"
"It's quite unnecessary. I have the other ends of the case in my hands. And besides I must go outside to meet our dear friend Geltmann when he arrives. He should be driving up to the house pretty soon—I had a telephone message five minutes ago telling me to expect him shortly. So I'm going out to break some sad news to him on the sidewalk. He doesn't know it yet, but he's starting to-night on a long, long trip; a trip that will take him clear out of this country—and he won't ever, ever be coming back.
"But I'll call on you to-morrow, if I may—after I've seen to getting him off for the West. I want to thank you again in behalf of the Service for the wonderful thing you've done so wonderfully well. And I want to hear more from you about that game you played."
"I'll do better than that," she promised: "I'll let you read about it in a book—an old secondhand book, it is; you saw it yesterday. Maybe I can convert you to reading old books; they're often full of things that people in your line should know."
"Lady," he said reverently, "you've made a true believer of me already."