way home. The detectives had pointed out to Mrs. Conway that this was important--that if the woman knew she was about to be unmasked she might be goaded into sudden action--perhaps even into destroying the pearls.
Hearing a strange voice calling her by name, Pearl came out of a trance into which the sunset and the sea had thrown her; glancing up from under her parasol, she saw at once that the speaker was Anthony Wood, and that he was exactly as she had imagined him. Seeing this, her heart gave a peculiar leap, and she beamed at him, more freely and wonderfully than she had ever beamed at anyone in the world. The look affected him--it would have affected any man; not just her beauty, for he had seen a good deal of beauty in his day, but this warm, generous honesty combined with beauty was something he had never seen. For a second or two they just looked at each other, Pearl beaming and beaming, and Wood looking at her, his face like a dark mask, but his turquoise eyes piercing her heart.
She spoke first. She said in her queer deep voice, "Oh, I'm so glad you've come, Mr. Wood."
"Are you?" he said.
Of all the sentences with which she might have greeted him—sentences of excuse, of explanation, of appeal--he had never thought of her saying this, and saying it with all the manner of joy and relief.