'Is it not sufficient that I am here?' he said.
'It is sufficient, yes,' she replied, 'but I want to know.'
With a long, easy stroke he was pulling the dinghy shorewards.
She sat in the stern-sheets.
'There is no rudder,' he remarked, 'so you must direct me. Keep the
boat's head on the lighthouse. The tide seems to be running in
strongly; that will help us. The people on shore will think that we
have only been for a little early morning excursion.'
'Will you kindly tell me how it came about that you were able to
save my life, Prince?' she said.
'Save your life, Miss Racksole? I didn't save your life; I merely
knocked a man down.'
'You saved my life,' she repeated. 'That villain would have stopped
at nothing. I saw it in his eye.'
'Then you were a brave woman, for you showed no fear of death.'
His admiring gaze rested full on her. For a moment the oars ceased
to move.
She gave a gesture of impatience.
'It happened that I saw you last night in your carriage,' he said. 'The
fact is, I had not had the audacity to go to Berlin with my story. I
stopped in Ostend to see whether I could do a little detective work
on my own account.
It was a piece of good luck that I saw you. I followed the carriage
as quickly as I could, and I just caught a glimpse of you as you
entered that awful house. I knew that Jules had something to do
with that house. I guessed what you were doing.
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