ver once taking his eyes off the
girl.

Odette Rider! The woman for whom the police of England were searching,
against whom a warrant had been issued on a charge of wilful murder--and
here, in a little country hospital. For a moment, and a moment only,
Tarling was in doubt. Had he been standing outside the case and watching
it as a disinterested spectator, or had this girl never come so closely
into his life, bringing a new and a disturbing influence so that the very
balance of his judgment was upset, he would have said that she was in
hiding and had chosen this hospital for a safe retreat. The very name
under which she was passing was fictitious--a suspicious circumstance in
itself.

The girl's eyes did not leave his. He read in their clear depths a hint
of terror and his heart fell. He had not realised before that the chief
incentive he found in this case was not to discover the murderer of
Thornton Lyne, but to prove that the girl was innocent.

"Mr. Tarling," she said with a queer little break in her voice, "I--I did
not expect to see you."

It was a lame opening, and it seemed all the more feeble to her since she
had so carefully rehearsed the statement she had intended making. For her
waking moments, since the accident, had been filled with thoughts of this
hard-faced man, what he would think, what he would say, and what, in
certain eventualities, he would do.

"I suppose not," said Tarling gently. "I am sorry to hear you have had
rather a shaking, Miss Rider."

She nodded, and a faint smile played about the corners of her mouth.

"It was nothing very much," she said. "Of course, it was very harried at
first and--what do you want?"

The last words were blurted out. She could not keep up the farce of a
polite conversation.

There was a moment's silence, and then Tarling spoke.

"I wanted to find you," he said, speaking slowly, and again he read her
fear.

"Well," she hesitated, and then said desperately and just a little
defiantly, "you have found me!"

Tarling nodded.

"And now that you have found me," she went on, speaking rapidly, "what do
you want?"

She was resting on her elbow, her strained face turned towards him, her
eyes slightly narrowed, watching him with an intensity of gaze which
betrayed her agitation.

"I want to ask you a few questions," said Tarling, and slipped a little
notebook from his pocket, balancing it upon his knee.

To his dismay the girl shook her head.

"I don't k