"Are they coming here from Europe?" asked Curtis quickly, for his
active mind was already groping toward certain dimly defined
conclusions.

"Yes."

"Could they have been fellow-passengers of mine on the _Lusitania_?"

"No, they are on board the _Switzerland_."

He smiled, and discarded that fateful overcoat.

"Then set your mind at rest," he said, with the nonchalance of a man
who has shelved a major difficulty. "The _Switzerland_ has broken
down. We passed her early to-day. She is staggering into port with
engines partly disabled and she cannot possibly reach New York before
to-morrow morning."

"Are you quite sure?" came the eager demand.

"Well, there is nothing so uncertain as the sea but a young friend of
mine said that those facts were signaled by wireless, and, to some
extent, they governed his own movements. I myself can assure you that
the _Switzerland_ was limping along like a lame duck at 8 A.M. to-day."

"Ah, thank Heaven for that small mercy!" murmured the girl. For a few
seconds she busied herself with gloves, veil, and hat-pins, and Curtis
happened to glance at the overcoat, which he had placed over the back
of a chair. To his dismay, he noticed that one of the sleeves, the
left, was bespattered with blood, but he contrived to refold the
garment so as to conceal this grewsome record of a tragedy before his
hostess had divested herself of hat and gloves.

Then they seemed to survey each other with a new interest, for Curtis
was a good figure of a man in evening dress, and Hermione Grandison
became, if possible, more attractive to the male eye because of the
wealth of brown hair which crowned her smooth forehead, almost hid her
tiny ears, and clustered low at the back of her slender, well-shaped
neck. Where the rays of light caught the coiled tresses they had the
sheen of burnished gold. In the shadow they commingled those
voluptuous tints by which the magic of Rubens has immortalized one fair
woman, Isabella Brant, in every gallery of note throughout the world.

Hermione it was, now, who first broke the silence which had reigned in
the room for a minute or more. Seating herself on the opposite side of
a square table, and resting her elbows thereon, she propped her pretty
chin on her small, clenched fists, and gazed fearlessly at Curtis.

"You must think me a very extraordinary person," she began.

"Let that pass," said he, with a smile, wise in the knowledge that the
present was