CHAPTER XIII.
Philippa leaned back in her place.
"Exactly what do you mean by that, Mr.Lessingham ?" she demanded.
He shook himself free from a curious sense of unreality, and turned towards her.
"I must confess," he said, "that sometimes your husband puzzles me." "Not nearly so much as he puzzles me," Philippa retorted, a little bitterly.
"Has he always been so desperately interested in deep-sea fishing ?" Philippa shrugged her shoulders.
"More or less, but never quite to this extent.

The thing has become an obsession with him lately.

If you are really going to stay and talk with me, do you mind if we don't discuss my husband?
Just now the subject is rather a painful one with me." "I can quite understand that," Lessingham murmured sympathetically.
"What do you think of Captain Griffiths ?" she asked, a little abruptly.
"I have thought nothing more about him.

Should I?
Is he of any real importance ?" "He is military commandant here." Lessingham nodded thoughtfully.
"I suppose that means that he is the man who ought to be on my track," he observed.
"I shouldn't be in the least surprised to hear that he was," Philippa said drily.

"I have told you that he came and asked about you the other night, when he dined here.