I was silent.
"If you don't tell me, how can I trust you again?" she asked. "Don't you see that there will always be a shadow between us?"
It was not difficult for me to guess that my guilty manner had roused her suspicions. She had seen my agitation, and had found it unaccountable. I resolved to entrust her with the secret of the germ.
"Do you remember that I once told you my friend, Professor Sarakoff, had succeeded in keeping butterflies alive for over a year?"
She nodded.
"He and I have been experimenting on those lines and he has found a germ that has the property of keeping human beings alive in the same way. The germ has escaped ... into the world ... and it is the cause of the Blue Disease."
"How did it escape?"
I winced. In her voice I was conscious of a terrible accusation.
"By accident," I stammered.
She jumped to her feet.