Their marriage had proved an ideal one, as happy as it was brilliant.  Esme, thereafter had spent half her time in Europe with her sister, half in America with her aunt, who was growing old.  Then had come the war.  At first it had covered the duke with laurels.  But a certain dark day had brought a cable from the duchess, telling of his disappearance and the suspicion that surrounded it; and Esme, despite her aunt’s entreaties, had promptly taken passage on the next ship that sailed.

“I had meant to go within a month, as a Red Cross nurse,” she told me.  “I had my passport, and I had taken a course.  Well, I came on to New York and spent the night there.  Aunt Alice telegraphed to her lawyer, the dearest, primmest old fellow, and he dined with me, protesting all the time against my sailing.  I saw you in the St. Ives restaurant.  Did you see us?”

“Let me think.”  I pretended to rack my brains.  “I believe I do recall something, in a hazy sort of way.  You had on a rose-colored gown that was distinctly wonderful, and when we tracked the German to the door of your room, you were wearing an evening coat, bright blue.  But the main thing was your hair!” Here I became lyric.  “An oak-leaf in the sunlight, Miss Falconer!  Threads of gold!”

But she ignored me, very properly, and shifted the scene from hotel to steamer, where Franz von Blenheim, in the guise of Van Blarcom, had given her a fright.  As she exhibited her passport at the gang-plank, he had read her name across her shoulder; then he had claimed acquaintance with her, a claim that she knew was false.

“And he wasn’t impertinent.  That was the worst of it,” she faltered.  “He did it—­well—­accusingly.  I had known all along that any one who knew of Jean’s marriage would recognize my name.  And Jean was suspected, and the French are strict; if they were warned, they would not let me enter France; they would think I had come spying.  I was afraid.  Then, after dinner, I went on deck and found you standing by the railing reading that paper with its staring headlines about Jean.”

“Of course!” I exclaimed.  At last I fathomed that puzzling episode.  “You thought the paper might speak of the duke’s marriage, that it might mention your sister’s name.  In that case, if it stayed on board, it might be seen by the captain or by an officer, and they would guess who you were and warn the authorities when we got to shore.”

“Yes.  That was why I borrowed it.  And I was right, I discovered; just at the end the account said that Jean had married an American, a Miss Enid Falconer, four years ago.  Then I asked you to throw it overboard, Mr. Bayne; and you were wonderful.  You must have thought I was mad, but you didn’t flutter an eyelid or even smile.  I have never forgotten—­and I’ve never forgiven myself either.  When I think of how the steward saw you and told the captain, and of how they searched your baggage that dreadful day—­”