and snow and gibbering Eskimos, and from that moment he was no longer Keith but spoke with the lips of Conniston.  He described the sunless weeks and months of madness until the girl’s eyes seemed to catch fire, and when at last he came to the little cabin in which Conniston had died, he was again John Keith.  He could not have talked about himself as he did about the Englishman.  And when he came to the point where he buried Conniston under the floor, a dry, broken sob broke in upon him from across the table.  But there were no tears in the girl’s eyes.  Tears, perhaps, would have hidden from him the desolation he saw there.  But she did not give in.  Her white throat twitched.  She tried to draw her breath steadily.  And then she said: 

“And that—­was John Keith!”

He bowed his head in confirmation of the lie, and, thinking of Conniston, he said: 

“He was the finest gentleman I ever knew.  And I am sorry he is dead.”

“And I, too, am sorry.”

She was reaching a hand across the table to him, slowly, hesitatingly.  He stared at her.

“You mean that?”

“Yes, I am sorry.”

He took her hand.  For a moment her fingers tightened about his own.  Then they relaxed and drew gently away from him.  In that moment he saw a sudden change come into her face.  She was looking beyond him, over his right shoulder.  Her eyes widened, her pupils dilated under his gaze, and she held her breath.  With the swift caution of the man-hunted he turned.  The room was empty behind him.  There was nothing but a window at his back.  The rain was drizzling against it, and he noticed that the curtain was not drawn, as they were drawn at the other windows.  Even as he looked, the girl went to it and pulled down the shade.  He knew that she had seen something, something that had startled her for a moment, but he did not question her.  Instead, as if he had noticed nothing, he asked if he might light a cigar.

“I see someone smokes,” he excused himself, nodding at the cigarette butts.

He was watching her closely and would have recalled the words in the next breath.  He had caught her.  Her brother was out of town.  And there was a distinctly unAmerican perfume in the smoke that someone had left in the room.  He saw the bit of red creeping up her throat into her cheeks, and his conscience shamed him.  It was difficult for him not to believe McDowell now.  Shan Tung had been there.  It was Shan Tung who had left the hall as he entered.  Probably it was Shan Tung whose face she had seen at the window.

What she said amazed him.  “Yes, it is a shocking habit of mine, Mr. Conniston.  I learned to smoke in the East.  Is it so very bad, do you think?”

He fairly shook himself.  He wanted to say, “You beautiful little liar, I’d like to call your bluff right now, but I won’t, because I’m sorry for you!” Instead, he nipped off the end of his cigar, and said: