I had been spared partly because, for some unknown reason, she was afraid to kill me, and partly that she might learn how much I knew, although the "death-hounds had bayed," whatever that might mean.

Well, up to the present I was safe, and for the rest I must take my chance.

Moreover it was necessary to be cautious, and, if need were, to feign ignorance.

So, dismissing the matter of my own fate from my mind, I fell to considering the scene which I had witnessed and what might be its purport.
Was our quest at an end?
Was this woman Ayesha?
Leo had so dreamed, but he was still delirious, therefore here was little on which to lean.
What seemed more to the point was that she herself evidently appeared to think that there existed some tie between her and this sick man.

Why had she embraced him?
I was sure that she could be no wanton, nor indeed would any woman indulge for its own sake in such folly with a stranger who hung between life and death.