Cuxson pulled her fiercely into his arms, crushing her cheek against his.
"Tell me all, every detail."
They sat there as the tide went out, and the man registered the facts of the tragic tale in his mind, eager to be out on the trail of the mystery overshadowing the girl he loved.
"Mad!" he laughed when she had finished, "mad!—no more than I am, and I'm sane enough in all conscience except in my love for you. I shall go to India, and wring or bribe the truth out of that ayah. But we needn't worry about the date of starting yet a while, and between then and now we shall have found a way out of this seeming impasse. What is it?"
Leonie had twisted herself suddenly out of his arms, looked over her shoulders and shivered.
"It is what I was telling you about, a sensation of someone standing close behind me."
"It's nothing, Leonie, just imagination," said Jan Cuxson.
For how could he see a certain high caste native of India walking slowly down the gangway from the great ship just docked at Tilbury, and smiling inscrutably as he placed his foot in the country which held the white woman he sought?
Leonie turned her head quickly, and shivered again, violently.
"It was just as though someone had called me," she said, speaking just above a whisper.