t as if struck with a
mallet! She might be lying, but something within me was horribly sure
that she spoke the truth. I'd never heard full details of Roger Fane's
"tragedy," but Mrs. Carstairs had dropped a few hints which, without
asking questions, I'd patched together. I had gleaned that he'd married
(when almost a boy) an actress much older than himself; and that, till
her sudden and violent death after many years--nine or ten at least--his
life had been a martyrdom. How the woman contrived to be alive I
couldn't see. But such things happened--to people one didn't know! The
worst of it was that _I did_ know Roger Fane, and liked him. Besides, I
loved Shelagh, whose happiness was bound up with Roger's. It seemed as
if I couldn't bear to have those two torn apart by this cruel
creature--this drunkard--this _spy_! Yet--what could I do?

At the moment I could think of nothing useful, because, if she was
Roger's wife, her boast was justified: for his sake and Shelagh's she
mustn't be handed over to the police, to answer for any political crime
I might prove against her--or even for trying to burn down the Abbey.
Oh, this business was beyond what I bargained for when I engaged to
"brighten" the trip on board the _Naiad_! Still, all the spirit in me
rallied to work for Roger Fane--even to work out his salvation if that
could be. And I was glad I'd let the woman believe I was Shelagh Leigh.

"Roger's wife died five years ago, just before the war began," I said.
"She was killed in a railway accident--an awful one, where she and a
company of actors she was travelling with were burned to death."

The creature laughed. "Have you never been to a movie show, and seen how
easy it is to die in a railway accident?--to _stay_ dead to those you're
tired of, and to be alive in some other part of this old world, where
you think there's more fun going on? It's been done on the screen a
hundred times--and off it, too. I was sick to death of Roger. I'd never
have married a stick like him--always preaching!--if I hadn't been down
and out. When I met him, it was in a beastly one-horse town where I was
stranded. The show had chucked me--gone off and left me without a cent.
I was sick--too big a dose of dope, if you want to know. But _Roger_
didn't know--you can bet. Not then! I took jolly good care to toe the
mark, till he'd married me all right. He _was_ a sucker! I suppose he
was twenty-two and over, but Peter Pan wasn't in it with him in s