Who was that mysterious personage whom Smith so evidently dreaded,
who had attempted his life, who, presumably, had murdered
Sir Crichton? Sir Crichton Davey, during the time that he had held
office in India, and during his long term of service at home,
had earned the good will of all, British and native alike.
Who was his secret enemy?

Something touched me lightly on the shoulder.

I turned, with my heart fluttering like a child's. This night's
work had imposed a severe strain even upon my callous nerves.

A girl wrapped in a hooded opera-cloak stood at my elbow,
and, as she glanced up at me, I thought that I never had seen
a face so seductively lovely nor of so unusual a type.
With the skin of a perfect blonde, she had eyes and lashes
as black as a Creole's, which, together with her full red lips,
told me that this beautiful stranger, whose touch had so startled me,
was not a child of our northern shores.

"Forgive me," she said, speaking with an odd, pretty accent,
and laying a slim hand, with jeweled fingers, confidingly upon
my arm, "if I startled you. But--is it true that Sir Crichton
Davey has been--murdered?"

I looked into her big, questioning eyes, a harsh suspicion laboring
in my mind, but could read nothing in their mysterious depths--
only I wondered anew at my questioner's beauty. The grotesque
idea momentarily possessed me that, were the bloom of her red
lips due to art and not to nature, their kiss would leave--