"
"Resigned to what?"
"Resigned to death!"
"Good God, Harley, you are right!" I cried. "You are right! I saw it in
his eyes as we left the library."
Harley stopped and turned to me sharply.
"You saw this in the Colonel's eyes?" he challenged.
"I did."
"Which corroborates my theory," he said, softly; "for _I_ had seen
it elsewhere."
"Where do you mean, Harley?"
"In the face of Madame de Staemer."
"What?"
"Knox"--Harley rested his hand upon my arm and looked about him
cautiously--"_she knows._"
"But knows what?"
"That is the question which we are here to answer, but I am as sure as
it is humanly possible to be sure of anything that whatever Colonel
Menendez may tell us to-night, one point at least he will withhold."
"What do you expect him to withhold?"
"The meaning of the sign of the Bat Wing."
"Then you think he knows its meaning?"
"He has told us that it is the death-token of Voodoo."
I stared at Harley in perplexity.
"Then you believe his explanation to be false?"
"Not necessarily, Knox. It may be what he claims for it. But he is
keeping something back. He speaks all the time from behind a barrier
which he, himself, has deliberately erected against me.
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