“No, no!” I cried eagerly, putting in my share now; for I had a part in the history.  “He wasn’t alone, Jack, though you thought him so at the time.  I remember all, at last.  It comes back to me like a flash.  Oh, heavens, how it comes back to me!  Jack, Jack, I remember to-day every word, every syllable of it!”

He gazed at me in surprise.

“Then tell me yourself, Una!” he exclaimed.  “How did you come to be there?  For I knew you were there at last; but till you fired the pistol, I hadn’t the faintest idea you had heard or seen anything.  Tell me all about it, quick!  There comes in my mystery.”

In one wild rush of thought the whole picture rose up like a vision before me.

“Why, Jack,” I cried, “there was a screen, a little screen in the alcove!  You remember the alcove at the west end of the room.  It was so small a screen, you’d hardly have thought it could hide me; but it did—­it did—­and all, too, by accident.  I’d gone in there after dinner, not much thinking where I went, and was seated on the floor by the little alcove window, reading a book by the twilight.  It was a book papa told me I wasn’t to read, and I took it trembling from the shelves, and was afraid he’d scold me—­for you know how stern he was.  And I never was allowed to go alone into the library.  But I got interested in my book, and went on reading.  So when he came in, I went on sitting there very still, with the book hidden under my skirt, for fear he should scold me.  I thought perhaps before long papa’d go out for a second, to get some plates for his photography or something, and then I could slip away and never be noticed.  The big window towards the garden was open, you remember, and I meant to jump out of it—­as you did afterwards.  It wasn’t very high; and though the book was only The Vicar of Wakefield, he’d forbidden me to read it, and I was dreadfully afraid of him.”

“Then you were there all the time?” Jack cried interrogatively.  “And you heard our conversation—­our whole conversation?”

“I was there all the time, Jack,” I cried, in a fever of exaltation:  “and I heard every word of it!  It comes back to me now with a vividness like yesterday.  I see the room before my eyes.  I remember every syllable:  I could repeat every sentence of it.”

Jack drew a deep sigh of intense relief.

“Thank God for that!” he exclaimed, with profound gratitude.  “Then I’m saved, and you’re saved.  We can both understand one another in that case.  We know how it all happened!”

“Perfectly,” I answered.  “I know all now.  As I sat there and cowered, I heard a knock at the door, and before papa could answer, you entered hastily.  Papa looked round, I could hear, and saw who it was in a second.

“‘Oh, it’s you!’ he said, coldly.  ’It’s you, Dr. Ivor.  And pray, sir, what do you want here this evening?’”

“Go on!” Jack cried, intensely relieved, I could feel.  “Let me see how much more you can remember, Una.”