"I came very quietly," she answered, "a little like a sneak-thief, I'm afraid. That front window is a little open. I overheard Mrs. Alden and a huge man. Of course she was only to light that signal if the game was wholly up. It meant to them that there was a party big enough to handle the lot of them. So I made up my mind I must slip in and burn it to-night, in case it was near by. I knew then they would burn the evidence, escape themselves, while the submarine would turn back, believing that the game was up."
"What a base!" he muttered. "With the trans-atlantic lanes at its mercy. All those transports and freighters marked for destruction! Alden saved the fat."
"Yes," Nora answered, "I gathered from what they said that he made sure to-night somehow and faced her with it. That was when she screamed and tried to send you out. Then her courage failed her and she called you back. She wasn't strong enough for murder. And from her point of view what she did was pure patriotism."
"It was because he suspected his wife, poor devil," Garth answered, "that he'd tell me nothing. I guess he hoped I'd convince him he was wrong."
He had been staring at the fire. He looked up now to find that Nora was knitting complacently on something heavy and comfortable and grey. Her eyes were thoughtful.
"Wife against husband," she mused. "Such tragedies are common in war. And she loved him. Have you noticed the conservatory door?"
It stood open. Through the glass Garth could see the far sea, still ruddy from the fire, and there entered again into his consciousness the restless clamor of water.
"He made me open it," Nora went on. "He looked out there until he went to sleep—a sort of farewell, a welcome if she should come back. Perhaps she will some day."
Such devotion stirred anew in Garth the sensations he had experienced in the conservatory. He watched Nora as her fingers moved with their accustomed deftness about her knitting. She made the old picture, lovable and tempting, of quiet, house-wifely efficiency.
"You always knit," he said in an uncertain voice.