“You will say nothing to anyone as to my accompanying you.”

“Very well,” I said again.

After all, perhaps it was better to have this fellow with me, but I had a premonition that I was getting into deep waters. Just when I thought I had attained peace!

I stopped my visitor as he was turning to depart.

“It might be just as well if I knew my new secretary’s name,” I observed sarcastically.

He considered for a minute.

“Harry Rayburn seems quite a suitable name,” he observed.

It was a curious way of putting it.

“Very well,” I said for the third time.

(Anne’s narrative resumed)

It is most undignified for a heroine to be seasick. In books the more it rolls and tosses, the better she likes it. When everybody else is ill, she alone staggers along the deck, braving the elements and positively rejoicing in the storm. I regret to say that at the first roll the Kilmorden gave, I turned pale and hastened below. A sympathetic stewardess received me. She suggested dry toast and ginger ale.

I remained groaning in my cabin for three days. Forgotten was my quest. I had no longer any interest in solving mysteries. I was a totally different Anne to the one who had rushed back to the South Kensington square so jubilantly from the shipping office.

I smile now as I remember my abrupt entry into the drawing room. Mrs. Flemming was alone there. She turned her head as I entered.