"You walk in your sleep, Leonie, by reason of the workings of an overwrought brain, that is all. India is the problem, and your ayah is the answer. I think she frightened you somehow, made some deep impression on you, on your baby brain, and we are going to India to find her. It's very simple, dear, once find the cause we can easily find the remedy, and it will be much better if you come with me. By the way, who gave you that cat's-eye?"
He had made a slip.
"When did you see it?" answered Leonie quickly, "I never showed it to you! Were—were you down there near me, before you called?"
"No," steadily lied the man, "but the thing slipped through your blouse one day—it's a brute. Who gave it to you?"
"My ayah! Do you know, I think you are quite wrong about her. Auntie says Mother told her that she nearly broke her heart when I left India, seventeen years ago, and she writes to me regularly every three months. Only last week I had a letter from——"
"Do you speak Hindustani?" interrupted Cuxson abruptly, with a frown on his face.
"Not a word!"
"Or Sanskrit?"
"Oh! no, neither, but the letters are in English, evidently written by one of those letter writers, who get so much for each letter they write for the illiterate poor. And in every one she says how she loves me and longs for my return, and although she is very happy in the service of some Ranee in the north of India, she wants to give it up and come to me."
There was a pause, broken by the nearing thunder and the crash of the waves against the cliffs.