rman?"

"No, to an English officer in the Secret Service. I'm always
forgetting and starting to tell."

"Why did you take your oath?"

"I traded secrecy for freedom."

"You mean you turned state's evidence?"

"Oh no, I didn't tell on them. I didn't know what they were up to when
they used me for-- But I'm skidding now. I want to tell you--terribly.
But I simply must not. I made an awful mistake that night at Mrs.
Prothero's in pretending to be ill."

"You only pretended?"

"Yes, to get you away. You see, Lady Clifton-Wyatt got after me,
accused me of being a spy, of carrying messages that resulted in the
sinking of ships and the killing of men. She said that the police came
to our house, and Sir Joseph tried to kill one of them and killed his
own wife and then was shot by an officer and that they gave out the
story that Sir Joseph and Lady Webling died of ptomaine poisoning. She
said Nicky Easton was shot in the Tower. Oh, an awful story she told,
and I was afraid she'd tell you, so I spirited you away on the pretext
of illness."

Davidge was astounded at this confirmation of Larrey's story. He
said:

"But it wasn't true what Lady C.-W. told?"

"Most of it was false, but it was fiction founded on fact, and I
couldn't explain it without breaking my oath. And now I've pretty
nearly broken it, after all. I've sprained it badly."

"Don't you want to go on and--finish it off?"

"I want to--oh, how I want to! but I've got to save a few shreds of
respectability. I kidnapped you the day you were going to tea with
Lady C.-W. to keep you from her. I wish now I'd let you go. Then you'd
have known the worst of me--or worse than the worst."

She turned a harrowed glance his way, and saw, to her bewilderment,
that he was smiling broadly. Then he seized her hands and felt a need
to gather her home to his arms.

She was so amazed that she fell back to stare at him. Studying his
radiant face, she somehow guessed that he had known part of her story
before and was glad to hear her confess it, but her intuition missed
fire when she guessed at the source of his information.

"You have been talking to Lady Clifton-Wyatt, after all!"

"Not since I saw her with you."

"Then who told you?"

He laughed now, for it pleased him mightily to have her read his heart
so true.

"The main thing is that you told me. And now once more I ask you: will
you marry me?"

This startled her indeed. She startled him no less by her brus