Nevertheless, treat every one alike. Trust
no one. Absolutely no one, Mr. Ducaine. It is your only chance. Now
go."

Her gesture of dismissal was almost imperative. I scrambled down the
path and gained the sands. When I looked up she was still standing
there. The wind blew her skirts around her slim young limbs, and her
hair was streaming behind her. Her face seemed like a piece of delicate
oval statuary, her steady eyes seemed fixed upon some point where the
clouds and sea meet. She took no heed of, she did not even see, my
gesture of farewell. I left her there inscrutable, a child with the
face of a Sphinx. She had set me a riddle which I could not solve.

CHAPTER VII

COLONEL RAY'S RING

The ring lay on the table between us. Colonel Ray had not yet taken it
up. In grim silence he listened to my faltering words. When I finished
he smiled upon me as one might upon a child that needed humouring.

"So," he said, slipping the ring upon his finger, "you have saved me
from the hangman. What remains? Your reward, eh?"

"It may seem to you," I answered hotly, "a fitting subject for jokes. I
am sorry that my sense of humour is not in touch with yours. You are a
great traveller, and you have shaken death by the hand before. For me
it is a new thing. The man's face haunts me! I cannot sleep or rest
for thinking of it--as I have seen it dead, and as I saw it alive
pressed against my window that night. Who was he? What did he want
with me?"

"How do you know," Ray asked, "that he wanted anything from you?"

"He looked in at my window."

"He might have seen me enter."

Then I told him what I had meant to keep secret.

"He asked for me in the village. He was directed to my cottage."

Ray had been filling his pipe. His fingers paused in their task. He
looked at me steadily.

"How do you know that?" he asked.

"The person to whom he spoke in the village told me so."

"Then why did that person not appear at the inquest?"

"Because I asked her not to," I told him. "If she had given evidence
the verdict must have been a different one."

"It seems to me," he said quietly, "that you have acted foolishly. If
that young woman, whoever she may be, chooses to tell the truth later on
you will be in an awkward position."

"If she had told the truth yesterday," I answered, "the position would
have been quite awkward enough. Let that go! I want to know who that
man was, what he wanted with me."

Colonel Ray shrugged hi