She looked up, startled, and noted the haggard lines in his face.

“I’ll hear it if you think I should, Fitz.”

“She is dead.”

“Dead? His—his wife?”

“She wasn’t his wife. She was a helpless leper, whom he was trying to cure with some new serum. He had to do it secretly because there is a law forbidding any one to harbor a leper.”

“Oh, Fitz!” she cried. “And she died of it?”

“No. They killed her. Last night.”

“They? Who?”

“Government agents, probably. They were after Pruyn.”

“How horrible! And—and Mrs. Pruyn. Where was she?”