Page:Biggers and Ritchie - Inside the Lines.djvu/312

 and mutter of the inexorable machine moving them closer—closer. Be alone with the man whose word could send bullets into his heart!

"A very pleasant dinner—Lady Crandall's," Woodhouse began, eager to lighten the tenseness of the situation.

"Yes, it seemed so." Crandall offered the younger man his cigarette case, and, lighting a smoke himself, straddled the hearth, his eyes keenly observant of Woodhouse's face.

"Rather odd, Americans. But jolly nice." The captain laughed in reminiscence of the unspoiled Shermans.

"I thought so—I married one," Crandall retorted.

The ear of Woodhouse's mind could hear more plainly now the grinding of the cogs; the immutable power of fate lay there.

"Oh—er—so you did. Very kind she has been to me. I got very little of this sort of thing at Wady Halfa."

"By the way, Woodhouse"—Crandall blew a contemplative puff toward the ceiling—"strange Mrs. Sherman should have thought she saw you at Berlin."

"Odd mistake, to be sure," Woodhouse