Anyhow, I stood to lose nothing if I got her confidence, and my
own could be withheld or not as I saw fit.
"We might as well be frank," I said. "How exactly did you come to spot
me?"
Again she smiled, and each time she smiled straight at me like that, I
confess frankly I grew less cautious.
"Do you remember when Captain Whiteclett came to arrest you, your
bed-room door was open gust for a minute?"
I did remember now and recalled her face outside and its very
expression vividly.
"I heard him call you 'Roger' and saw that you knew each other well, and
then of course I knew we had been utterly wrong in thinking you a--"
She paused and I finished the sentence for her.
"A spy."
"Well, are you honestly surprised? You did do some most extraordinary
things, Mr. Merton! I only began to get the least idea of what you were
about some time afterwards."
"And what idea did you get then? And how did you get it?"
"It was when we began to hear of the bad name our island was getting.
_Then_ I guessed you must have been trying to investigate and catch the
traitor--and I had gone and interfered--and even locked you up!"
"It was you, then?"
"Well, father, of course, approved, but I locked the door. And after I
had found out the truth, I could have murdered myself! But why did you
puzzle us so?"
Her charm and sincerity and animation almost made me tell her there and
then, but I had just enough hold of myself to ask instead,
"But this doesn't explain how you came to find me out this time?"
"Well in a way it does; for I knew then that Roger Merton was your real
name and then I remembered where I had heard it before, and I knew you
were the same person.
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