t I
hadn't given you time for much study of my features that other night.
But it doesn't matter. You can't do anything to me. I'll soon prove
_that_! But I had a good look at _you_, there in your friend's old
Devonshire rat-trap. I knew who you both were. It was easy to find out!
And the other day, when I heard that Lady Shelagh Leigh was likely to
marry Roger Fane, I said to myself, 'Gosh! One of the girls I saw at the
darned old Abbey!'"

"Oh, you said _that_ to yourself!" I echoed. And, though my knees
failed, I kept to my feet. To stand towering above the squatting figure
on the bed seemed to give me moral as well as physical advantage. "How
did you know, pray, which girl I was?"

"I knew, 'pray,'" she mocked, "because you've got the best room on this
yacht. Roger'd be sure to give that to his best girl. Which is how I'm
sure you're not Elizabeth Courtenaye."

"How clever you are!" I said.

"Yes--I'm clever--when I'm not a fool. Don't think, anyhow, that you can
beat me in a battle of brains. I've come on board this boat to succeed,
and I _will_ succeed in one of two ways, I don't care a hang which. But
nothing on God's earth can hold me back from one or the other--least of
all, can _you_. Why, you can ask any question you please, and I'll
answer. I'll tell the truth, too--for the more I say, and the more
you're shocked, the more helpless you are--do you see?"

"No, I don't see," I drew her on.

"Don't you guess yet who I am?"

"I've guessed what you _were_--a German spy."

"That's ancient history. One must live--and one must have money--plenty
of money. I must! And I've had it. But it's gone from me--like most good
things. Now I must have more--a lot more. Or else I must die. I don't
care which. But _others_ will care. I'll make them."

Looking at her, I doubted if she had the power; though she must have had
it in lost days of gorgeous youth. Yet again I remained silent. I saw
that she was leading up to something in particular, and I let her go on.

"You're not much of a guesser," she said, "so I'll introduce myself.
Lady-who-thinks-she's-going-to-marry Roger Fane, let me make known to
you the lady who _has_ married him--Mrs. Fane, _nee_ Linda Lehmann. I've
changed my name since, more than once. At present I'm Katherine Nelson.
But Linda Lehmann is the name that matters to Roger. You're nothing in
looks, by the by, to what _I_ was at your age. _Nothing!_"

If my knees had been weak before, they now fel