"Nigel! How dared he?"
"Who? Borkins? That kind of a devil dares anything.... How's your uncle, dear? He has heard, of course?"
Her face brightened, her eyes were suddenly moist. She put her hands upon his shoulders and tilted her chin so that she could see his eyes.
"Uncle Gustave told me to tell you that he does not believe a word of it, dearest!" she said, softly. "And he is going to make investigations himself. He is so unhappy, so terribly unhappy over it all. Such a tangled web as it is, such a wicked, wicked plot they have woven about you! Oh, Nigel dearest—why did you not tell me that they were detectives, these friends of yours who were coming to visit? If you had only said—"
He held her a moment, and then, leaning forward, kissed her gently upon the forehead.
"What then, p'tite?"
"I would have made you send them away—I would! I would!" she cried, vehemently. "They should not have come—not if I had wired to them myself! Something told me that day, after you were gone, that a dreadful thing would happen. I was frightened for you—frightened! And I could not tell why! I kept laughing at myself, trying to tease myself out of it, as though it were simply—what you call it?—the 'blues'. And now—this!"
He nodded.
"And now—this," he said, grimly, and laughed.
Bennett, hand upon watch, turned apologetically at this juncture.