Page:Cruise of the Jasper B (1916).djvu/131

 and mangling it with his penknife he gave his judgment briefly.

"Queer," he said.

"But what does that explain?" asked Lady Agatha. "Perhaps the Earl of Claiborne came to this country and took to making counterfeit money in the hold of the Jasper B., into and out of which he stole like a ghost? Finally he got tired of it and blew himself up with a bomb out there, leaving his ring with a piece of money intact? Is that the explanation we get out of our facts? Because, you know," she added, as Cleggett did not smile, "all that is absurd!"

"Yes," said Cleggett, still refusing to be amused, "but out of all this jumble of mystery, just one certain thing appears."

"And that is?"

"That our destinies are somehow linked!"

"Our destinies? Linked?"

She gave him a swift look, and as suddenly dropped her eyes again. Cleggett could not tell whether she was offended or not by his expression of the idea.

"The same people," said Cleggett, after a brief pause, "who are so persistently hostile to me are