"
"It would explain that, certainly," I admitted, though, at first
thought, the theory did not appeal to me. "You believe, then that Miss
Holladay was forcibly abducted?"
"Undoubtedly. If her mind was going to give way at all, it would have
done so at once, and not two weeks after the tragedy."
"But if she had brooded over it," I objected.
"She wasn't brooding--at least, she had ceased to brood. You have Mr.
Royce's word and the butler's word that she was getting better,
brighter, quite like her old self again. Why should she relapse?"
"I don't know," I said helplessly. "The more I reason about it, the
more unreasonable it all seems. Besides, that affair last night has
upset me so that I can't think clearly. I feel that I was
careless--that I wasn't doing my duty."
"I shouldn't worry about it; though, of course," she added a little
severely, "you've realized by this time that you alone are to blame
for Martigny's presence on the boat."
"But I had to go to the Jourdains'," I protested, "and I couldn't help
their going to him--to have asked them not to go would have made them
suspect me at once."
"Oh, yes; but, at least, you needn't have sent them. They might not
have gone at all--certainly they wouldn't have gone so promptly--if
you hadn't sent them."
"Sent them?" I repeated, and stared at her in amazement, doubting if I
had heard aright.
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