Her charm and sincerity and animation almost made me tell her there and then, but I had just enough hold of myself to ask instead,
"But this doesn't explain how you came to find me out this time?"
"Well in a way it does; for I knew then that Roger Merton was your real name and then I remembered where I had heard it before, and I knew you were the same person. When you called as Mr. Hobhouse that first day I hadn't the least suspicion to begin with, and then suddenly you began to look familiar—"
"With this beard!"
"Well, your face isn't all hidden by your beard and I thought I recognised the other bits. If I hadn't known you were an actor—"
"A pretty bad one, it appears," I interposed.
"Oh, no, indeed, you were simply splendid! You still kept me puzzled and only half certain even after I had met you and Captain Whiteclett walking together and noticed you move apart when you saw me. In fact I wasn't sure till that walk along the shore. I arranged that to make quite certain."
"You arranged it!" I exclaimed. "The deuce you did, Miss Rendall!"
She laughed defiantly.
"I was dying to make sure! So when I saw you coming towards the house, I rushed into my things and went out to meet you. I thought if I could take you the same walk as we had been before, you could hardly help doing something to give yourself away. And at last you did!"