"Regretted? Why?"
The woman shrugged her shoulders. All along she had been cognisant of the tragedy, yet with her innate cleverness she had not admitted her knowledge.
"A man often regrets his friendship with a woman," she said, with a mysterious air.
"What!" I cried fiercely. "Do you make an insinuation that——"
"My dear Mr. Royle," she laughed, "I make no insinuation. It was you who have endeavoured to compel me to condemn her as Digby's enemy. You yourself suggested it!"
"But you have told me that his fiercest and most bitter enemy was a woman!"
"Certainly. But I have not told you that woman's name, nor do I intend to break my vow of secrecy to Digby—fugitive that he may be at this moment. Yet, depend upon it, he will return and crush his enemies in the dust."
"I hope he will," was my fervent reply. "Yet I love Phrida Shand, and upon her there rests a terrible cloud of suspicion."
She was silent for a moment, still standing beneath the lamp, gazing at me with those big, dark eyes.
At last she said: