"You will never walk in your sleep again, will you, Grace?"
"No, it is all settled. He has forgiven me."
Had Beverton sent her to bed now he might have spared himself a life-long puzzle which ever baffled solution; but, with fairly good command of himself, he yielded to curiosity, and asked:
"What had you done to him? What had he to forgive?"
Her face became convulsed; the query seemed a blow that gave her agony. With arms extended and fingers clutching again, she tottered, but did not fall; and he mercilessly repeated the question. She did not answer, and he, blindly desirous of prompting her, reached for the knife on the sideboard.
"Had it anything to do with this?" he asked.
"The scimitar," she exclaimed, hoarsely. "I killed her with it." Then she pressed her hands to her brow, held them tightly, and her eyes closed, while her frame stiffened visibly under the pressure. When she removed her hands and looked at him, she seemed another person; for in her eyes was the strange, hard expression they had worn when she had dozed off in her chair. They lighted on the carving-knife, and before he could move she pounced upon him and wrenched it from his hand.
"Ha," she exclaimed, in the same harsh, raspy voice as before; "and would the señorita harm herself—or me? 'Tis a pretty plaything"—she ran her finger along the edge—"but too sharp for the Lady Isobel. Moorish make, I trow—we took it from the Spanish plate-ship off Tortuga—but better fit to slay than to prod. And had ye thought, my obstinate charmer, that when my patience is given out, it may be this that shall slit your smooth white throat?" With a meaning and somewhat quizzical smile at him, she laid the knife on the sideboard.
Beverton kept his nerve, remembering her recent amenability to his suggestions.
"Who are you?" he asked, tentatively, seeking an opening for further inquiry.