Ann drew him quickly into the house.
"I was just coming over to see you," she told him swiftly. "It's--it's
about last night."
His face darkened.
"About last night?" he repeated. "What about it?"
"You found--Cara--on board Brett's yacht."
"I did--and drew my own conclusions."
"Well, they were wrong ones," said Ann. Then, seeing that he looked quite
unconvinced, she went on quickly lest her courage should fail her. "If it
had not been for Cara, you would have found me there--"
"You? Then it's true--true you actually intended going there? Bradley was
right?"
"Yes, he told you just what he had been ordered to tell you. Brett believed
I was coming--he was expecting me. I promised to go because he held some
bills of Tony's--Tony had borrowed from him far more than he could pay. And
Brett bargained with me that he would give them up if I would go to supper
with him on the _Sphinx_." The whole story came tumbling out in quick,
vivid sentences. In a few moments Eliot was in possession of all the facts
which lay behind his discovery of Cara on the yacht.
"So Cara had taken your place." There was a strange new gentleness in his
voice as he spoke of the woman who had first broken and then built up his
life again.
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