I understand
you. And that's why I'm going to tell you something, something
very--frightful."

There was a solemnity in his voice which held, which startled her.

"Frightful?" she almost whispered.

"Yes. I didn't mean ever to tell you. But somehow, when you came back
to-day, came hurrying back to me so quickly, without even doing what you
went away to do, somehow I began to feel as if I must tell you, as if I
should be a cad not to, as if it was your right to know."

She said nothing. She had no idea what was coming.

"It is your right to know."

He paused. Now he was not looking at her, but straight before him into
the darkness.

"Last night Isaacson and I were here."

At the Doctor's name she moved.

"I had asked him to tell me what my illness had been, what I had been
suffering from. He said he would tell me. This was before."

Now again he looked at her.

She formed "Yes" with her lips.

"When we were out here after dinner, I asked him again to tell me. I had
had your telegram then."

She nodded.

"He knew you were coming back a day sooner than we had expected."

She nodded again.

"And he told me. I am going to tell you what he said. He said that I had
been poisoned"--her hand twitched beneath his--"by a preparation of
lead, administered in small doses through a long period of time."

"Poisoned!"

"Yes."

"And--and you believe such a thing?"

"Yes. In such matters Isaacson _knows_."

"Poisoned!" she repeated.

She said the word without the horror he had expected, dully,
mechanically. He thought perhaps she was dazed by surprise.

"But that's not all," he said, still holding her hand closely. "I asked
him who on board the _Loulia_ could have wished for my death."

"That's--that's just what I was thinking," she managed to say.

"And then he said a dreadful thing."

"What?"

"He said that you had done it."

She took her hand away from his sharply, and sat back in her chair. He
did not move. They sat there looking at each other. And their silence
was disturbed by the perpetual singing on the _Loulia_.

And so it had been said!

Isaacson had discovered the exact truth, and had told it to Nigel!

She felt a reckless relief. As she sat there, she seemed to be staring
not at Nigel but at herself. And as she stared at herself, she
marvelled.

"He said that you had done it, or, if not that, had known that it was
being done, had meant it to be done."

She remained silent and mot