CHAPTER 17So they took away Tony Romano and carried with them also the bodies of the two men, and the passengers of the Ceramia heard for the first time of the tragedy which had occurred without their knowledge. Then Jim sought the woman. She was not alone. Cecile was with her, her arms about her.
"Do they want me?" asked Stella Markham dully. Jim shook his head. He hesitated to tell of the Spaniard's deed by which he had forfeited what little chance he had had of escaping the Chair.
"I haven't had to explain your presence on the ship, Mrs Trenton," he said.
"The only man who can betray you is dead."
She nodded.
"Tony...Tony did that for me?"
It was not until that evening when they were gathered in Cecile's sitting-room at the hotel that she told her story.
"I ran away from school w
