Chapter Fourteen.Cruel Destiny.James Harding Miller was seated alone in a long cane deck-chair on the terrace that ran the whole length of the beautiful old house. He had drawn it out through the French windows of the smoking-room, and was idly drawing out a cigar in the semi-darkness.“Father!” cried Lucie, rushing forward as we approached, “do you recognise our visitor?”Instantly he jumped up, exclaiming:—“Why Ella—Ella after all this time! Minton told me that you had called and had gone in search of Lucie. And how is your father?”“He’s very well, thanks,” was my love’s reply. “I left him at Swanage, and drove out to see if Lucie was at home.”“And Mr Leaf,” exclaimed Lucie. “I think you have met him before, father?”“Certainly,” Miller said pleasantly, extending his hand to me. “You are staying here, in Studland?”“For a couple of days or so,” I answered.“You mentioned that you had met my daughter,” he remarked, and then after welcoming Ella and pressing her to remain there the night, he ordered Minton to bring us chairs, and pushed the cigars across to me.To Miller, Ella gave the same account of herself as she had given to us. The identity of the person who had spread the false report concerning her death—a report which had passed from mouth to mouth among all her friends—was a mystery, and Miller was just as surprised and just as pleased as ourselves at her reappearance.As we sat there in the starlight I listened to Ella’s account of her free, open-air life in County Galway, for Wichenford was still let to the wealthy American; and her father, she said, preferred Ireland as a place of residence when he could not live on his own estate.“But you never wrote to us,” Miller remarked. “Often we have spoken of you, and regretted that you were no longer with us. Indeed, your portrait is still yonder in the drawing-room. Only the day before yesterday Mr Leaf noticed it, and inquired whether I knew you.”My love’s eyes met mine in a long wistful look.“I believed that you were always abroad,” she answered him. “And—well, to tell the truth, I had an idea that you had altogether forgotten me.”“Forgotten you, dear?” cried Lucie. “We have never forgotten you. How could I ever forget my dearest friend—and more especially when I knew what a terrible self-sacrifice you had made?”“What’s that?” inquired Miller, quickly interested.“Shall I tell him?” asked Lucie, turning to me.“If you wish. It is only right, I think, that Mr Miller should know the truth.”Therefore, receiving Ella’s consent as well, Lucie explained to her father how I had been her friend’s secret lover, and how she had broken off our affection by force of circumstance, sacrificing herself in order to save her father from ruin.He listened to his daughter in surprise, then sighing heavily, turned to Ella, saying sympathetically:—“How noble of you! Ah! what you both must have suffered! You need not tell me, either of you, for I know myself what it is to lose the woman one loves. I recollect my poor dear wife and still adore her memory.” And this from a man who was suspected of being leader of a gang of international criminals!“The bitterness of the past,” I said, “will perhaps render the joy of the present all the sweeter.”“It certainly ought to. Surely your delight at finding Ella alive and well when you, like all of us, believed her dead, must be beyond bounds?”“It is! It is!” I cried. “I, who believed that she preferred wealth to my honest love; I, who have these long years been filled with a thousand regrets and reproaches, now know the truth. I have misjudged her!”The soft hand of my well-beloved sought my wrist and gripped it. That action conveyed more to me than any words of hers could have done.Presently it grew chilly, and we went into the long old-fashioned drawing-room, where we found Miss Miller, a pleasant grey-faced old lady, in a cap with cherry-coloured ribbons, idling over a book.Upon the table still stood the portrait of my dear heart, the picture which only two days before had awakened within me such bitter remembrances. The silk-shaded lamps shed a soft light over everything, illuminating for the first time my Ella’s beautiful face. In the twilight by the river I had seen that she had become even more beautiful, yet the light that now fell upon her revealed a calmness and sweetness of expression that I had not hitherto been able to distinguish. She was far more lovely than I had believed—more beautiful even than in those days of our secret love.Those great blue eyes looked out upon me with that same love-flame as of old—eyes that were clear and bright as a child’s, the glance of which would have made any man’s head reel—cheeks that were more delicately moulded than the marbles of Michael Angelo, and a grace that was perfect, complete, adorable.And she was mine—still my own!Strange that this sudden happiness was actually the sequel of a tragedy!“It is really delightful to be back here again,” she remarked to Lucie, glancing round the room. “How well I remember the old days when, in the holidays, I came and stayed with you. Nothing has changed. The dear old place is just the same.”“Yes,” replied Lucie. “I only wish we lived here more. But father and I are always abroad—always moving from place to place through France, Germany, Spain, Italy, just as the fit takes us. Nowadays, dear old dad is really like the Jew-errant. He can’t remain more than a few days in one place—can you, dad?” she asked, laughing across at him.“No, my dear,” was his response in a strange voice. “I must travel—travel—always travel. To keep moving is part of my nature, I believe.”“Only fancy! he’s here in England!” she remarked to Ella. “It’s really wonderful!”While this conversation was in progress I was afraid that old Miss Miller might refer to my call upon her; but fortunately she either did not catch my name when introduced, or did not connect me with her mysterious visitor.The owner of Studland Manor was, I saw, somewhat uneasy when his daughter began to explain how constantly they travelled. He seemed a little annoyed that Lucie should tell us that they were constantly moving, instead of living quietly by the Mediterranean outside Leghorn, as he would have me believe.The old-fashioned Empire clock beneath its glass shade, standing on the chimney-piece, struck eleven, and I rose resolutely to take my leave. I had expressed pleasure at my new-found happiness, shook hands all round, and asked leave to call on the morrow.“Certainly—most certainly,” answered Miller, in that breezy manner that he had sometimes assumed towards me on our last meeting. He was essentially a man of moods, sometimes brooding and strange, at others full of buoyant good-humour, “You are always welcome here, remember. Perhaps you’ll dine with us—just pot-luck—at seven to-morrow night? I don’t expect you get much that’s worth eating down at the ‘Lion’. We’ll induce Ella to stay over to-morrow, eh?”My love protested that she would be compelled to return to Swanage in the morning, but we would not hear of it.Then Miller, with a delicacy which further showed that he had taken a fancy to me, suggested that Ella might, perhaps, like to accompany me as far as the lodge-gates, and a few moments later I went forth with my love into the darkness.For the first hundred paces, until we entered the black shadows of the old beech hedge, we walked hand-in-hand, uttering no single word.After that long interval of mourning and black despair, I was again at her side—alone. I was beside myself for very joy.We halted. It seemed an almost involuntary action. Then taking her tenderly in my arms I pressed my lips to hers in a first long passionate caress.“My love!” I murmured, with heart overflowing, “my dearest love—you for whom I have mourned, and whose dear memory I have ever revered—God has given you back to me. We have met again—you have been given to me from the grave, never to part—never—never!”To my blank amazement she turned her pale white face from mine, without reciprocating my passionate kisses. She sighed, and a shiver ran through her slight frame. Her lips were cold, and with her hands she pushed me from her with averted face.“Ella!” I gasped, holding her, and looking into her fine eyes, though I could see no expression there, so dark was it. “Ella! Darling, may I not at least kiss you welcome on your return to me? Are you not mine—my own?”She made no response, only pushing me farther from her very firmly, although I felt that her tiny hands trembled. She was overcome with emotion, which she was in vain striving to suppress.I held my breath—startled at her sudden and unaccountable change of manner. My heart was bursting. What did it mean?“Speak, dearest!” I implored. “Tell me the reason of this? Are you not still my love? Are you not mine—as you were in the old days?”Slowly she shook her head, and in a faltering voice, hoarse and low, responded:—“No, Godfrey! After to-night we must never again meet. Forgive me, but I thought you had long ago forgotten me as utterly worthless.”“I have never forgotten, darling. You are my own dear Ella, as always. Therefore we are now inseparable—weshallmeet again.”“Impossible!” she declared decisively in that same hard tone, her voice so entirely changed. “I am no longer your love, Godfrey. I may as well confess to you the bitter truth at once—I am another’s!”
James Harding Miller was seated alone in a long cane deck-chair on the terrace that ran the whole length of the beautiful old house. He had drawn it out through the French windows of the smoking-room, and was idly drawing out a cigar in the semi-darkness.
“Father!” cried Lucie, rushing forward as we approached, “do you recognise our visitor?”
Instantly he jumped up, exclaiming:—
“Why Ella—Ella after all this time! Minton told me that you had called and had gone in search of Lucie. And how is your father?”
“He’s very well, thanks,” was my love’s reply. “I left him at Swanage, and drove out to see if Lucie was at home.”
“And Mr Leaf,” exclaimed Lucie. “I think you have met him before, father?”
“Certainly,” Miller said pleasantly, extending his hand to me. “You are staying here, in Studland?”
“For a couple of days or so,” I answered.
“You mentioned that you had met my daughter,” he remarked, and then after welcoming Ella and pressing her to remain there the night, he ordered Minton to bring us chairs, and pushed the cigars across to me.
To Miller, Ella gave the same account of herself as she had given to us. The identity of the person who had spread the false report concerning her death—a report which had passed from mouth to mouth among all her friends—was a mystery, and Miller was just as surprised and just as pleased as ourselves at her reappearance.
As we sat there in the starlight I listened to Ella’s account of her free, open-air life in County Galway, for Wichenford was still let to the wealthy American; and her father, she said, preferred Ireland as a place of residence when he could not live on his own estate.
“But you never wrote to us,” Miller remarked. “Often we have spoken of you, and regretted that you were no longer with us. Indeed, your portrait is still yonder in the drawing-room. Only the day before yesterday Mr Leaf noticed it, and inquired whether I knew you.”
My love’s eyes met mine in a long wistful look.
“I believed that you were always abroad,” she answered him. “And—well, to tell the truth, I had an idea that you had altogether forgotten me.”
“Forgotten you, dear?” cried Lucie. “We have never forgotten you. How could I ever forget my dearest friend—and more especially when I knew what a terrible self-sacrifice you had made?”
“What’s that?” inquired Miller, quickly interested.
“Shall I tell him?” asked Lucie, turning to me.
“If you wish. It is only right, I think, that Mr Miller should know the truth.”
Therefore, receiving Ella’s consent as well, Lucie explained to her father how I had been her friend’s secret lover, and how she had broken off our affection by force of circumstance, sacrificing herself in order to save her father from ruin.
He listened to his daughter in surprise, then sighing heavily, turned to Ella, saying sympathetically:—
“How noble of you! Ah! what you both must have suffered! You need not tell me, either of you, for I know myself what it is to lose the woman one loves. I recollect my poor dear wife and still adore her memory.” And this from a man who was suspected of being leader of a gang of international criminals!
“The bitterness of the past,” I said, “will perhaps render the joy of the present all the sweeter.”
“It certainly ought to. Surely your delight at finding Ella alive and well when you, like all of us, believed her dead, must be beyond bounds?”
“It is! It is!” I cried. “I, who believed that she preferred wealth to my honest love; I, who have these long years been filled with a thousand regrets and reproaches, now know the truth. I have misjudged her!”
The soft hand of my well-beloved sought my wrist and gripped it. That action conveyed more to me than any words of hers could have done.
Presently it grew chilly, and we went into the long old-fashioned drawing-room, where we found Miss Miller, a pleasant grey-faced old lady, in a cap with cherry-coloured ribbons, idling over a book.
Upon the table still stood the portrait of my dear heart, the picture which only two days before had awakened within me such bitter remembrances. The silk-shaded lamps shed a soft light over everything, illuminating for the first time my Ella’s beautiful face. In the twilight by the river I had seen that she had become even more beautiful, yet the light that now fell upon her revealed a calmness and sweetness of expression that I had not hitherto been able to distinguish. She was far more lovely than I had believed—more beautiful even than in those days of our secret love.
Those great blue eyes looked out upon me with that same love-flame as of old—eyes that were clear and bright as a child’s, the glance of which would have made any man’s head reel—cheeks that were more delicately moulded than the marbles of Michael Angelo, and a grace that was perfect, complete, adorable.
And she was mine—still my own!
Strange that this sudden happiness was actually the sequel of a tragedy!
“It is really delightful to be back here again,” she remarked to Lucie, glancing round the room. “How well I remember the old days when, in the holidays, I came and stayed with you. Nothing has changed. The dear old place is just the same.”
“Yes,” replied Lucie. “I only wish we lived here more. But father and I are always abroad—always moving from place to place through France, Germany, Spain, Italy, just as the fit takes us. Nowadays, dear old dad is really like the Jew-errant. He can’t remain more than a few days in one place—can you, dad?” she asked, laughing across at him.
“No, my dear,” was his response in a strange voice. “I must travel—travel—always travel. To keep moving is part of my nature, I believe.”
“Only fancy! he’s here in England!” she remarked to Ella. “It’s really wonderful!”
While this conversation was in progress I was afraid that old Miss Miller might refer to my call upon her; but fortunately she either did not catch my name when introduced, or did not connect me with her mysterious visitor.
The owner of Studland Manor was, I saw, somewhat uneasy when his daughter began to explain how constantly they travelled. He seemed a little annoyed that Lucie should tell us that they were constantly moving, instead of living quietly by the Mediterranean outside Leghorn, as he would have me believe.
The old-fashioned Empire clock beneath its glass shade, standing on the chimney-piece, struck eleven, and I rose resolutely to take my leave. I had expressed pleasure at my new-found happiness, shook hands all round, and asked leave to call on the morrow.
“Certainly—most certainly,” answered Miller, in that breezy manner that he had sometimes assumed towards me on our last meeting. He was essentially a man of moods, sometimes brooding and strange, at others full of buoyant good-humour, “You are always welcome here, remember. Perhaps you’ll dine with us—just pot-luck—at seven to-morrow night? I don’t expect you get much that’s worth eating down at the ‘Lion’. We’ll induce Ella to stay over to-morrow, eh?”
My love protested that she would be compelled to return to Swanage in the morning, but we would not hear of it.
Then Miller, with a delicacy which further showed that he had taken a fancy to me, suggested that Ella might, perhaps, like to accompany me as far as the lodge-gates, and a few moments later I went forth with my love into the darkness.
For the first hundred paces, until we entered the black shadows of the old beech hedge, we walked hand-in-hand, uttering no single word.
After that long interval of mourning and black despair, I was again at her side—alone. I was beside myself for very joy.
We halted. It seemed an almost involuntary action. Then taking her tenderly in my arms I pressed my lips to hers in a first long passionate caress.
“My love!” I murmured, with heart overflowing, “my dearest love—you for whom I have mourned, and whose dear memory I have ever revered—God has given you back to me. We have met again—you have been given to me from the grave, never to part—never—never!”
To my blank amazement she turned her pale white face from mine, without reciprocating my passionate kisses. She sighed, and a shiver ran through her slight frame. Her lips were cold, and with her hands she pushed me from her with averted face.
“Ella!” I gasped, holding her, and looking into her fine eyes, though I could see no expression there, so dark was it. “Ella! Darling, may I not at least kiss you welcome on your return to me? Are you not mine—my own?”
She made no response, only pushing me farther from her very firmly, although I felt that her tiny hands trembled. She was overcome with emotion, which she was in vain striving to suppress.
I held my breath—startled at her sudden and unaccountable change of manner. My heart was bursting. What did it mean?
“Speak, dearest!” I implored. “Tell me the reason of this? Are you not still my love? Are you not mine—as you were in the old days?”
Slowly she shook her head, and in a faltering voice, hoarse and low, responded:—
“No, Godfrey! After to-night we must never again meet. Forgive me, but I thought you had long ago forgotten me as utterly worthless.”
“I have never forgotten, darling. You are my own dear Ella, as always. Therefore we are now inseparable—weshallmeet again.”
“Impossible!” she declared decisively in that same hard tone, her voice so entirely changed. “I am no longer your love, Godfrey. I may as well confess to you the bitter truth at once—I am another’s!”
Chapter Fifteen.Betrays some Hidden Intrigue.I fell back at Ella’s words, as though I had received a blow full in the chest.“You—you are married!” I gasped.“No—not yet,” was her low answer, in the same blank, mechanical voice.“Then you love another man!” I cried fiercely.“In a month’s time I am to be married.”“But you shall not, Ella!” I exclaimed quickly and determinedly. “You are mine. Surely I have a prior claim to you! You loved me in the old days—you surely cannot deny that!”“I do not deny it, Godfrey,” she said, in that same sweet, soft voice that had so long rung in my ears. “Unfortunately I did not know that you still retained any affection for me. I made inquiries, but no one knew where you were, except that you were always abroad. For aught I knew you might already be married. Therefore, I am not altogether to blame.”“Who is the man?” I asked, with a fierce jealousy rising within me. Was this fellow, whoever he might be, to rob me, after all, of my love, whom I had so fortunately rediscovered?“I regret it, but I cannot tell you his name.”“Not tell me his name!” I cried. “Why not? What mystery need there be if you are to be married?”“I have promised to say nothing until we are man and wife,” she answered. “You alone, Godfrey, have I told because—well, because I dare not again deceive you.”“Then you still love me!” I exclaimed quickly. “Confess the truth.”“What is the use of discussing affection?” she asked. “The die is cast. At the very moment when we meet again after this long separation, we find ourselves debarred from happiness. We can never become man and wife.”“Why not?”“Because I must marry this man.”“Must?”“Yes,” she whispered hoarsely.“But you were in that position regarding Blumenthal,” I remarked, much puzzled. In the darkness I could not distinguish the expression of her countenance, but from her voice I knew that she was in desperation, and that she was actually telling me a hideous truth.“Misfortune seems to follow upon me,” was her somewhat enigmatical answer.“Then be frank with me, Ella. This man whom you will not name is forcing you to marry him.”She was, however, silent. Either she feared to commit herself, or she was reflecting upon how much she dare tell me.I heard her breath going and coming in quick gasps, and I could distinguish that her pointed chin had sunk upon her chest in an attitude of deep dejection.“Why not tell me everything, darling?” I went on, hoping to persuade her to confess. “Remember what I am to you; remember that our lives have for so long been linked together, that ever in these years of our separation you have been mine always, in heart and soul. I have smiled upon no other woman but your own sweet self, and never once has my heart been stirred by the zephyr of love since that dark wet night when we parted in London, and I went forth into the wide grey ocean of despair. Ella, you—”“Enough! Enough!” she cried, suddenly interrupting me. “Do not recall the past. All is too bitter, too melancholy. Every single detail of our last interview I have lived over and over again—I, who lied to you, even though my heart was breaking. Blumenthal gave me my freedom—and yet—”“And yet,” I said very slowly, in a low, intense voice—“and yet you have again fallen the victim of a man’s ingenious wiles. Tell me the truth, dearest. You have been entrapped—and you see no way of escape.”But she only shook her head sadly, saying:—“No, I can say nothing—not even to you, Godfrey.”“Why?” I cried, dismayed. “Why all this secrecy and mystery? Surely I may, at least, know the man’s name?”“That I cannot tell you.”“Then he has forbidden you to reveal his real identity?”She nodded in the affirmative.“Which plainly shows that the fellow is in fear of something. He’s afraid of exposure in some way or other. I will not allow you, my own dear love, to become the victim of this fellow!” I said fiercely. “He may be an adventurer, for all you know—a man with an evil past. He has, without doubt, ascertained that on your father’s death Wichenford will be yours. No, Ella, I will not allow you to marry this man who forbids you to reveal his name.”“But what will you do?” she cried in alarm.“What will I do? I will tell him to his face that you are mine—that he has no right to you. And you will refuse to become his wife.”“Ah!—yes—but you must not do that,” she declared. “Why not?”“No. I beg of you to do nothing rash,” she urged in breathless anxiety, laying her hand upon my arm.“But I will not allow you—my own well-beloved—to become the wife of another!”“Godfrey,” she said, in so low a voice that it was scarcely above a whisper, “you must. There is no way of escape for me.”“Then you are a victim of this nameless man!”She nodded in the affirmative.“Who is he? Tell me,” I demanded. “I have a right to know.”“Yes, you have, indeed, a right, but I have given my word of honour to say nothing. I cannot tell his name—even to you.”The mystery of it all somehow aroused my suspicions. Was she deceiving me? Had she invented this nameless lover with some ulterior object? No man can ever fathom the ingenuity of a woman who intends to deceive.“Permit me to say so, Ella, but you are not frank with me,” I exclaimed reproachfully. “Why do you not tell me the whole truth, and allow me to take what steps I think proper? Cannot you realise all I feel at the thought of losing you again—for the second time? The past has been black enough, but the future for me will be even darker if I go away in the knowledge that you are the victim of a man unworthy of you. Tell me, dearest, do you doubt my love?”“No,” she sighed. “I have never doubted it, Godfrey. I know how passionate is your affection; that you love me truly and well. Yet it is all to no purpose. We have met again, it is true, and under the strangest circumstances. It would almost seem as though Fate has brought us together, merely in order to tear us apart. For us, Godfrey, there, alas! can be no happiness,” she added sadly, with a deep-drawn sigh.“Why not?”For a few moments she did not reply. I repeated my question, again kissing the cold lips.“Because—because,” she faltered, “I am compelled to marry this man.”“He is compelling you, eh?” I asked, between my teeth.“Yes.”“And may I not stand as your champion? May I, who love you so dearly, extricate you from this trap?”She shook her head slowly.“It is not a trap, Godfrey,” she answered. “Rather call it force of circumstances. Those who told you I was dead lied to you, while I, hearing nothing from you, naturally concluded that you had forgotten. Therefore it is best for us to part again at once—to-night—for the memories of the past are to us both too painful.”“Part from you, Ella!” I cried. “Never—never. You must be mad. While you breathe and live I shall remain near you as your friend, your protector, nay, your lover—the man who loves you better than his own life!” I declared, taking her small hand and raising it reverently to my lips. “It is cruel of you, darling, to suggest us parting.”“No, it is the more merciful to both of us. We must part—so the sooner the better.”“You told me this on that never-to-be-forgotten night in London,” I said reproachfully. “Therefore I cannot think that you are now in earnest.”“I am, Godfrey,” she declared quickly. “I do not deny to you that I love you, but love between us is debarred. I am unhappy—ah! God alone knows what trials I have borne—what horrors have been mine to witness—and now to fill the cup of my grief I have met you only to find that you still love me,” she cried hoarsely, in a voice broken by emotion.I held her trembling hand, and again kissed her cold, hard lips.But she drew herself from me firmly, saying in a low, broken voice, full of pathos:—“No, Godfrey. Let us say good-night here. Let both of us go our own way, as we have done before; both of us, however, now confident in each other’s love, even though our lives lie far apart. Remember me only as an unhappy woman who, through no fault of her own, is prevented from becoming your wife. Think of me still as your Ella of the old sweet days, and I will remember you, my Godfrey—the—the man I love. I—”But she could utter no further word, for she burst into a flood of bitter tears.
I fell back at Ella’s words, as though I had received a blow full in the chest.
“You—you are married!” I gasped.
“No—not yet,” was her low answer, in the same blank, mechanical voice.
“Then you love another man!” I cried fiercely.
“In a month’s time I am to be married.”
“But you shall not, Ella!” I exclaimed quickly and determinedly. “You are mine. Surely I have a prior claim to you! You loved me in the old days—you surely cannot deny that!”
“I do not deny it, Godfrey,” she said, in that same sweet, soft voice that had so long rung in my ears. “Unfortunately I did not know that you still retained any affection for me. I made inquiries, but no one knew where you were, except that you were always abroad. For aught I knew you might already be married. Therefore, I am not altogether to blame.”
“Who is the man?” I asked, with a fierce jealousy rising within me. Was this fellow, whoever he might be, to rob me, after all, of my love, whom I had so fortunately rediscovered?
“I regret it, but I cannot tell you his name.”
“Not tell me his name!” I cried. “Why not? What mystery need there be if you are to be married?”
“I have promised to say nothing until we are man and wife,” she answered. “You alone, Godfrey, have I told because—well, because I dare not again deceive you.”
“Then you still love me!” I exclaimed quickly. “Confess the truth.”
“What is the use of discussing affection?” she asked. “The die is cast. At the very moment when we meet again after this long separation, we find ourselves debarred from happiness. We can never become man and wife.”
“Why not?”
“Because I must marry this man.”
“Must?”
“Yes,” she whispered hoarsely.
“But you were in that position regarding Blumenthal,” I remarked, much puzzled. In the darkness I could not distinguish the expression of her countenance, but from her voice I knew that she was in desperation, and that she was actually telling me a hideous truth.
“Misfortune seems to follow upon me,” was her somewhat enigmatical answer.
“Then be frank with me, Ella. This man whom you will not name is forcing you to marry him.”
She was, however, silent. Either she feared to commit herself, or she was reflecting upon how much she dare tell me.
I heard her breath going and coming in quick gasps, and I could distinguish that her pointed chin had sunk upon her chest in an attitude of deep dejection.
“Why not tell me everything, darling?” I went on, hoping to persuade her to confess. “Remember what I am to you; remember that our lives have for so long been linked together, that ever in these years of our separation you have been mine always, in heart and soul. I have smiled upon no other woman but your own sweet self, and never once has my heart been stirred by the zephyr of love since that dark wet night when we parted in London, and I went forth into the wide grey ocean of despair. Ella, you—”
“Enough! Enough!” she cried, suddenly interrupting me. “Do not recall the past. All is too bitter, too melancholy. Every single detail of our last interview I have lived over and over again—I, who lied to you, even though my heart was breaking. Blumenthal gave me my freedom—and yet—”
“And yet,” I said very slowly, in a low, intense voice—“and yet you have again fallen the victim of a man’s ingenious wiles. Tell me the truth, dearest. You have been entrapped—and you see no way of escape.”
But she only shook her head sadly, saying:—
“No, I can say nothing—not even to you, Godfrey.”
“Why?” I cried, dismayed. “Why all this secrecy and mystery? Surely I may, at least, know the man’s name?”
“That I cannot tell you.”
“Then he has forbidden you to reveal his real identity?”
She nodded in the affirmative.
“Which plainly shows that the fellow is in fear of something. He’s afraid of exposure in some way or other. I will not allow you, my own dear love, to become the victim of this fellow!” I said fiercely. “He may be an adventurer, for all you know—a man with an evil past. He has, without doubt, ascertained that on your father’s death Wichenford will be yours. No, Ella, I will not allow you to marry this man who forbids you to reveal his name.”
“But what will you do?” she cried in alarm.
“What will I do? I will tell him to his face that you are mine—that he has no right to you. And you will refuse to become his wife.”
“Ah!—yes—but you must not do that,” she declared. “Why not?”
“No. I beg of you to do nothing rash,” she urged in breathless anxiety, laying her hand upon my arm.
“But I will not allow you—my own well-beloved—to become the wife of another!”
“Godfrey,” she said, in so low a voice that it was scarcely above a whisper, “you must. There is no way of escape for me.”
“Then you are a victim of this nameless man!”
She nodded in the affirmative.
“Who is he? Tell me,” I demanded. “I have a right to know.”
“Yes, you have, indeed, a right, but I have given my word of honour to say nothing. I cannot tell his name—even to you.”
The mystery of it all somehow aroused my suspicions. Was she deceiving me? Had she invented this nameless lover with some ulterior object? No man can ever fathom the ingenuity of a woman who intends to deceive.
“Permit me to say so, Ella, but you are not frank with me,” I exclaimed reproachfully. “Why do you not tell me the whole truth, and allow me to take what steps I think proper? Cannot you realise all I feel at the thought of losing you again—for the second time? The past has been black enough, but the future for me will be even darker if I go away in the knowledge that you are the victim of a man unworthy of you. Tell me, dearest, do you doubt my love?”
“No,” she sighed. “I have never doubted it, Godfrey. I know how passionate is your affection; that you love me truly and well. Yet it is all to no purpose. We have met again, it is true, and under the strangest circumstances. It would almost seem as though Fate has brought us together, merely in order to tear us apart. For us, Godfrey, there, alas! can be no happiness,” she added sadly, with a deep-drawn sigh.
“Why not?”
For a few moments she did not reply. I repeated my question, again kissing the cold lips.
“Because—because,” she faltered, “I am compelled to marry this man.”
“He is compelling you, eh?” I asked, between my teeth.
“Yes.”
“And may I not stand as your champion? May I, who love you so dearly, extricate you from this trap?”
She shook her head slowly.
“It is not a trap, Godfrey,” she answered. “Rather call it force of circumstances. Those who told you I was dead lied to you, while I, hearing nothing from you, naturally concluded that you had forgotten. Therefore it is best for us to part again at once—to-night—for the memories of the past are to us both too painful.”
“Part from you, Ella!” I cried. “Never—never. You must be mad. While you breathe and live I shall remain near you as your friend, your protector, nay, your lover—the man who loves you better than his own life!” I declared, taking her small hand and raising it reverently to my lips. “It is cruel of you, darling, to suggest us parting.”
“No, it is the more merciful to both of us. We must part—so the sooner the better.”
“You told me this on that never-to-be-forgotten night in London,” I said reproachfully. “Therefore I cannot think that you are now in earnest.”
“I am, Godfrey,” she declared quickly. “I do not deny to you that I love you, but love between us is debarred. I am unhappy—ah! God alone knows what trials I have borne—what horrors have been mine to witness—and now to fill the cup of my grief I have met you only to find that you still love me,” she cried hoarsely, in a voice broken by emotion.
I held her trembling hand, and again kissed her cold, hard lips.
But she drew herself from me firmly, saying in a low, broken voice, full of pathos:—
“No, Godfrey. Let us say good-night here. Let both of us go our own way, as we have done before; both of us, however, now confident in each other’s love, even though our lives lie far apart. Remember me only as an unhappy woman who, through no fault of her own, is prevented from becoming your wife. Think of me still as your Ella of the old sweet days, and I will remember you, my Godfrey—the—the man I love. I—”
But she could utter no further word, for she burst into a flood of bitter tears.
Chapter Sixteen.Introduces Mr Gordon-Wright.Next morning, after a night of dark reflections, spent at the dormer window of the village inn, I called at the Manor House as early as the convenances would permit.Lucie, cool in a white blouse and piqué skirt, met me in the hall, and, to my surprise, told me that Ella had already departed. At seven o’clock she asked that she might be driven back to Swanage to rejoin her father, as they were leaving early on the motor-car.She was as surprised as I myself was at this sudden decision to leave, for she expected that she would remain there for another day at least, now that we had again met.“Didn’t she tell you that she was leaving early?” Lucie asked, looking me straight in the face.“No. I certainly expected to find her here,” I said, as she led me into the old-fashioned morning-room sweet with the odour of pot-pourri in the big Oriental punch-bowls.I was utterly taken aback by her announcement.When I had parted from my love she had declared that to meet again was useless, but I had assured her that in the morning I would call—that now we had met I would not again leave her. Had she not confessed her love for me? Did we not love each other with a fond, mad passion? And yet my darling had, it appeared, fallen beneath the influence of some nameless fellow, who was, no doubt, a scoundrel and an adventurer! Should I calmly stand by and allow her to ruin her life and mine? No. A thousand times, no. And as I stood there in silence in the low-ceilinged old room with Lucie Miller at my side, I made a firm and furious resolve that my Ella should not again escape me. Our love, however, seemed ill-fated. The remembrance of that night in Bayswater ever arose within my memory. Again how curious it was, that through the dead I had found the living. By the death of Nardini I had rediscovered my lost love.I wondered whether I should confide in Lucie and explain what my love had told me, or whether it was best to allow her, at least for the present, to remain in ignorance? I decided, after due reflection, upon the latter course.“I, of course, thought that she had wished you good-bye, and made an appointment for another meeting,” Lucie said. “In fact, both my father and myself were greatly surprised when she came and asked that the horse might be put to. And yet—” and without finishing her sentence, she looked mysteriously into my face.“And yet what?” I asked.For a few moments she was silent, hesitating to explain. I saw by her face that something had puzzled her. We had so quickly become friends, and our friendship had been cemented by our mutual acquaintanceship with Ella Murray, that we had found ourselves speaking perfectly frankly as though we had known each other for years.“Well—will you pardon me for asking you a rather impertinent question, Mr Leaf?” she said.“Why, certainly.”“You’ll perhaps think me curiously inquisitive, but how long were you with Ella in the avenue after you left last night?”“About half an hour.”“Not more?”“No. I can fix it, because I noted the time by that long grandfather clock in the hall as we went out, and I looked at my watch when I got back to the inn. I was three-quarters of an hour in getting back to Studland.”“That’s rather strange,” she remarked, with a distinct note of suspicion in her voice.“Why?”“Well—because Ella was gone nearly two hours and a half. My father went to bed, and I remained up for her. Wasn’t she with you?”“Certainly not,” was my prompt answer, much surprised at her statement.“Then something must have occurred after she left you,” my companion said.“After she left me! What do you mean?”“A very long time elapsed before her return,” Lucie remarked. “She may have been alone—but I think not.”“Who was with her?”“How can we tell?”“But what causes you to think that Ella was not alone?”“By her strange manner when she returned. She was pale and breathless, as though she had been hurrying, and although she had pinned it up I noticed that the sleeve of her blouse was torn, and that her wrist bore dark marks as though she had had a desperate struggle with some one.”“Was she attacked by some tramp or other, I wonder?” I cried, amazed.“She refused to tell me anything save that she was rather upset. She seemed in great fear that my father should have knowledge of the affair, and made me faithfully promise not to tell him. Her hair was awry, and some of the lace at the throat was torn as though some person had seized her and tried to strangle her. Indeed, while speaking to me she placed her hand at her throat, as if it pained her. Alarmed at her appearance, I inquired what was the matter, but she would only tell me vaguely that she was not very well. I at once jumped to the conclusion that you had quarrelled.”“We certainly had no quarrel, Miss Miller,” I quickly reassured her.“Then it is evident that she was attacked by some one! Yet it is curious that, intimate friends that we are, she would tell me nothing of the incident.”“She wished to shield her assailant, perhaps,” I remarked, much puzzled.“It certainly seems so. Seeing her so pale, and believing her about to faint, I took her to the dining-room and gave her some brandy. She sipped it, and a moment afterwards burst into tears. I sat with her for nearly half an hour trying to learn the mystery of her unhappiness. I asked her quite frankly if she had quarrelled with you, but she replied in the negative. Under the light, as she sat in the dining-room, I remarked the great change in her. Her countenance was pale as death, her lips white, and her eyes bore a look of terror in them. She was undoubtedly in great fear. But of what, I am unable to tell.”“Your surmise is, no doubt, correct. She met some one unexpectedly—some one who attacked her. I wonder who it is?”“She was evidently followed here this evening, and was, perhaps, seen walking with you. Your conversation, as you walked down to the lodge, might have been overheard.”“Probably. But surely, Miss Miller, the incidents of last night were very remarkable ones. I followed you and I met my love. And then, just at the moment of my re-found happiness, she has gone again without a word. Indeed, when I reflect, the incidents of last night hardly seem real. I find myself doubting whether it was not all a dream, and would really hesitate to believe in its reality if you, too, had not been present—if you, too, had not seen and spoken with her.”“Yes, it is curious—very curious. I was quite as startled by her sudden appearance as you were. It is inexplicable. I, too, believed she was dead. I heard so from half a dozen people, and I can’t help thinking, Mr Leaf, that there was some deep ulterior motive in spreading such a report concerning her.”“She’s a mystery,” I declared; “a complete mystery.”“She is—and yet do you not find her far more beautiful than in the old days? I do.”“Perhaps her beauty is fatal—like that of so many women,” I sighed. “The source of many a woman’s unhappiness is to be found in her face.”“Last night tragedy was written deeply upon hers,” my companion said, in a low, sympathetic voice. “I wonder what has occurred?”I, too, wondered. Her firm refusal to allow me to kiss her upon the lips showed her either to be in deadly fear of the jealousy of another; or that she was true to the vow she had given, even though she still loved me. Yet who could be this person whom she had undoubtedly met after we had parted? Why had he attacked her? Why had she fled again so quickly? Was she in fear of some one who was still lurking in the vicinity? A sense of deadly chilliness stole over me.The whole affair was, indeed, a mystery, yet not so utterly bewildering as were certain of the events which followed—events which were so strange and startling that they formed a problem that was for so long beyond solution.Being so passionately devoted to Ella I determined to follow her, demand an explanation of the attack upon her and seek to discover the identity of her unknown lover—the man whom she had admitted to me she was to marry under compulsion.I had risen from my chair, expressing my intention of driving into Swanage in the hope that she had not already left, when the door opened, and a dark, well-dressed man about forty, clean-shaven, having the appearance of a naval officer and dressed in a dark grey flannel suit, came forward with extended hand to my companion, wishing her good-morning.From his easy manner I saw that he was a guest in the house, although on the previous night I had not seen him.“Will you allow me to introduce you?” Lucie said, and next instant presented the newcomer to me as “My father’s friend, Mr Gordon-Wright.”The visitor turned to take the hand I extended to him, and raised his eyes to mine.The conventional greeting and assurance of pleasure at the meeting froze upon my lips.We had met before—under circumstances that were, to say the least, both startling and strange.In that instant I recognised how that the mystery had deepened a thousandfold.
Next morning, after a night of dark reflections, spent at the dormer window of the village inn, I called at the Manor House as early as the convenances would permit.
Lucie, cool in a white blouse and piqué skirt, met me in the hall, and, to my surprise, told me that Ella had already departed. At seven o’clock she asked that she might be driven back to Swanage to rejoin her father, as they were leaving early on the motor-car.
She was as surprised as I myself was at this sudden decision to leave, for she expected that she would remain there for another day at least, now that we had again met.
“Didn’t she tell you that she was leaving early?” Lucie asked, looking me straight in the face.
“No. I certainly expected to find her here,” I said, as she led me into the old-fashioned morning-room sweet with the odour of pot-pourri in the big Oriental punch-bowls.
I was utterly taken aback by her announcement.
When I had parted from my love she had declared that to meet again was useless, but I had assured her that in the morning I would call—that now we had met I would not again leave her. Had she not confessed her love for me? Did we not love each other with a fond, mad passion? And yet my darling had, it appeared, fallen beneath the influence of some nameless fellow, who was, no doubt, a scoundrel and an adventurer! Should I calmly stand by and allow her to ruin her life and mine? No. A thousand times, no. And as I stood there in silence in the low-ceilinged old room with Lucie Miller at my side, I made a firm and furious resolve that my Ella should not again escape me. Our love, however, seemed ill-fated. The remembrance of that night in Bayswater ever arose within my memory. Again how curious it was, that through the dead I had found the living. By the death of Nardini I had rediscovered my lost love.
I wondered whether I should confide in Lucie and explain what my love had told me, or whether it was best to allow her, at least for the present, to remain in ignorance? I decided, after due reflection, upon the latter course.
“I, of course, thought that she had wished you good-bye, and made an appointment for another meeting,” Lucie said. “In fact, both my father and myself were greatly surprised when she came and asked that the horse might be put to. And yet—” and without finishing her sentence, she looked mysteriously into my face.
“And yet what?” I asked.
For a few moments she was silent, hesitating to explain. I saw by her face that something had puzzled her. We had so quickly become friends, and our friendship had been cemented by our mutual acquaintanceship with Ella Murray, that we had found ourselves speaking perfectly frankly as though we had known each other for years.
“Well—will you pardon me for asking you a rather impertinent question, Mr Leaf?” she said.
“Why, certainly.”
“You’ll perhaps think me curiously inquisitive, but how long were you with Ella in the avenue after you left last night?”
“About half an hour.”
“Not more?”
“No. I can fix it, because I noted the time by that long grandfather clock in the hall as we went out, and I looked at my watch when I got back to the inn. I was three-quarters of an hour in getting back to Studland.”
“That’s rather strange,” she remarked, with a distinct note of suspicion in her voice.
“Why?”
“Well—because Ella was gone nearly two hours and a half. My father went to bed, and I remained up for her. Wasn’t she with you?”
“Certainly not,” was my prompt answer, much surprised at her statement.
“Then something must have occurred after she left you,” my companion said.
“After she left me! What do you mean?”
“A very long time elapsed before her return,” Lucie remarked. “She may have been alone—but I think not.”
“Who was with her?”
“How can we tell?”
“But what causes you to think that Ella was not alone?”
“By her strange manner when she returned. She was pale and breathless, as though she had been hurrying, and although she had pinned it up I noticed that the sleeve of her blouse was torn, and that her wrist bore dark marks as though she had had a desperate struggle with some one.”
“Was she attacked by some tramp or other, I wonder?” I cried, amazed.
“She refused to tell me anything save that she was rather upset. She seemed in great fear that my father should have knowledge of the affair, and made me faithfully promise not to tell him. Her hair was awry, and some of the lace at the throat was torn as though some person had seized her and tried to strangle her. Indeed, while speaking to me she placed her hand at her throat, as if it pained her. Alarmed at her appearance, I inquired what was the matter, but she would only tell me vaguely that she was not very well. I at once jumped to the conclusion that you had quarrelled.”
“We certainly had no quarrel, Miss Miller,” I quickly reassured her.
“Then it is evident that she was attacked by some one! Yet it is curious that, intimate friends that we are, she would tell me nothing of the incident.”
“She wished to shield her assailant, perhaps,” I remarked, much puzzled.
“It certainly seems so. Seeing her so pale, and believing her about to faint, I took her to the dining-room and gave her some brandy. She sipped it, and a moment afterwards burst into tears. I sat with her for nearly half an hour trying to learn the mystery of her unhappiness. I asked her quite frankly if she had quarrelled with you, but she replied in the negative. Under the light, as she sat in the dining-room, I remarked the great change in her. Her countenance was pale as death, her lips white, and her eyes bore a look of terror in them. She was undoubtedly in great fear. But of what, I am unable to tell.”
“Your surmise is, no doubt, correct. She met some one unexpectedly—some one who attacked her. I wonder who it is?”
“She was evidently followed here this evening, and was, perhaps, seen walking with you. Your conversation, as you walked down to the lodge, might have been overheard.”
“Probably. But surely, Miss Miller, the incidents of last night were very remarkable ones. I followed you and I met my love. And then, just at the moment of my re-found happiness, she has gone again without a word. Indeed, when I reflect, the incidents of last night hardly seem real. I find myself doubting whether it was not all a dream, and would really hesitate to believe in its reality if you, too, had not been present—if you, too, had not seen and spoken with her.”
“Yes, it is curious—very curious. I was quite as startled by her sudden appearance as you were. It is inexplicable. I, too, believed she was dead. I heard so from half a dozen people, and I can’t help thinking, Mr Leaf, that there was some deep ulterior motive in spreading such a report concerning her.”
“She’s a mystery,” I declared; “a complete mystery.”
“She is—and yet do you not find her far more beautiful than in the old days? I do.”
“Perhaps her beauty is fatal—like that of so many women,” I sighed. “The source of many a woman’s unhappiness is to be found in her face.”
“Last night tragedy was written deeply upon hers,” my companion said, in a low, sympathetic voice. “I wonder what has occurred?”
I, too, wondered. Her firm refusal to allow me to kiss her upon the lips showed her either to be in deadly fear of the jealousy of another; or that she was true to the vow she had given, even though she still loved me. Yet who could be this person whom she had undoubtedly met after we had parted? Why had he attacked her? Why had she fled again so quickly? Was she in fear of some one who was still lurking in the vicinity? A sense of deadly chilliness stole over me.
The whole affair was, indeed, a mystery, yet not so utterly bewildering as were certain of the events which followed—events which were so strange and startling that they formed a problem that was for so long beyond solution.
Being so passionately devoted to Ella I determined to follow her, demand an explanation of the attack upon her and seek to discover the identity of her unknown lover—the man whom she had admitted to me she was to marry under compulsion.
I had risen from my chair, expressing my intention of driving into Swanage in the hope that she had not already left, when the door opened, and a dark, well-dressed man about forty, clean-shaven, having the appearance of a naval officer and dressed in a dark grey flannel suit, came forward with extended hand to my companion, wishing her good-morning.
From his easy manner I saw that he was a guest in the house, although on the previous night I had not seen him.
“Will you allow me to introduce you?” Lucie said, and next instant presented the newcomer to me as “My father’s friend, Mr Gordon-Wright.”
The visitor turned to take the hand I extended to him, and raised his eyes to mine.
The conventional greeting and assurance of pleasure at the meeting froze upon my lips.
We had met before—under circumstances that were, to say the least, both startling and strange.
In that instant I recognised how that the mystery had deepened a thousandfold.
Chapter Seventeen.What Happened in the Night.Whether the recognition had been mutual I was unable to decide.If it had the newcomer made no sign, but extended his hand and greeted me, while I, striving to remain unconcerned, returned his welcome.“Your father tells me he’s driving over to Swanage at half-past ten, Miss Lucie. Are you coming with us?” he asked, as he lounged with his hands deep in his jacket pockets, and an after-breakfast cigarette between his lips.“I don’t think so,” was her reply. “I’m lunching with the Strong girls.”“Oh, do come,” urged the dark-faced man. “You’d be back before one. You promised me yesterday that you’d drive me somewhere.”“So I will—to-morrow, perhaps.”I watched the man’s thin shaven face, and looked into his grey eyes in silence. His was a countenance striking on account of its clear-cut features, its mobile mouth, its high intellectual forehead, and its protruding jaws—an eminently clever, good-humoured face, and yet the expression in the eyes was, somehow, out of keeping with the rest of the countenance.He laughed lightly, making some chaffing remarks, whereat the slight flush that arose in Lucie’s cheeks told me that she was not altogether averse to his evident admiration. He was a pleasant fellow—but, nevertheless, a mystery.His appearance there had, for two reasons, startled me. The first was because I had no idea that Miller had a male visitor, and the second was because I recognised him as a person whom I had long desired to rediscover.The last occasion I had seen him he had called himself Lieutenant Shacklock, R.N. It was in very different circumstances. He had worn a moustache and beard, and affected a gold-rimmed monocle. His personal appearance as he stood there laughing with Lucie was, however, very different, yet those cold grey, close-set eyes were the same. They wore an expression that could never be altered or disguised.We spoke together once or twice, and I began to feel convinced that he was unaware of our previous meeting.“Yes,” he remarked to me. “Beautiful old place this. I wonder my friend Miller doesn’t live here more. If I were in his place I’m sure I’d prefer it to wandering about the Continent.”“You’ve been here before, I suppose?”“Many times. Miller, when he’s home, generally invites me,” and then he turned to Lucie, by whom he was undoubtedly attracted. Little wonder, indeed, when one recognised how handsome she was.I again stood silent, my eyes turned upon the spruce man’s face—the face that brought back to my mind a curious and mysterious incident in my wandering life abroad.When one travels on the Continent as I had travelled, spending years of aimless wandering and lazy idling in the halls and smoking-rooms of hotels of the first order, making passing acquaintances of men and women of all grades and all nations, listening to music in illuminated gardens, and sometimes wandering with some fairtable-d’hôteacquaintance beneath the stars, one meets with some queer adventures. I had met with a good many. One of them I now found myself recalling.Three winters before I found myself, after the brilliant season at Monte Carlo, at a little sea-side resort called Nervi, which, as travellers know, is a few miles beyond Genoa, on the way to Rome. You have possibly looked out of the train and there obtained a glimpse of the blue Mediterranean beating upon its brown rocks; you have admired the splendid white villas of the Genoese merchants, and you have, probably, noticed behind the little railway station a great hotel garden, with green lawns and a splendid avenue of spreading palms.In that garden one April night after dinner I was strolling and smoking with two men, who were friends. We had met casually in the hotel a few days before; a pleasant word or two, cocktails in company, a proffered cigar, and we at once became acquaintances, as is the way of cosmopolitans. The elder was named Blenkap, a man of sixty, a wealthy ironmaster from Pittsburg; while Shacklock, the other, was much younger, smart, and had just retired from the Navy.That night we wandered through the gardens to the sea, which lay like glass beneath the light of the white Italian moon, with the waves sighing softly upon the shingle. But Blenkap, after half an hour, complained of being rather unwell, and while the lieutenant went into the town to purchase some cigarettes I accompanied his friend back to the hotel.It was then about ten o’clock, and refusing to allow me to call a doctor, the American went to his room. At two o’clock in the morning I was awakened by the night-porter, who said that number ninety-seven had asked him to call me. Hastily I dressed, and, on going along the corridor, found Blenkap in bed in a state of collapse.“I’m very ill; the pains in my head are terrible,” he whispered to me. “Will you call a doctor—somebody who speaks English, if possible?”His white face alarmed me, and I left him and went along to the lieutenant’s room at the other end of the corridor. To my knock there was, however, no response, but on turning the handle and opening the door, I found the room in darkness and empty. He had not returned. Therefore I hurried out, and in half an hour returned with an Italian doctor who spoke a little English.On entering the room I noticed that the doctor sniffed the air mysteriously as he crossed to the patient, who I now saw was unconscious. He examined him, asked me a few brief questions, and then fixing his eyes upon me, exclaimed in Italian:—“This is a rather curious affair, signore.”“Why?” I inquired. “The gentleman was taken this evening while we were walking together. He complained of bad pains in his head and stomach.”“Yes, but who gave him the anaesthetic?” asked the doctor.“Anaesthetic!” I exclaimed. “Why nobody, as far as I know.”“Well, chloroform has been given him, and quite recently. He struggled against it—don’t you see?” and he indicated the American’s clenched hands and the disordered bed. “How long were you absent?”“About half an hour.”“Then some one must have come here while you were away,” the doctor declared, stroking his dark beard very thoughtfully. At first I was alarmed lest the unfortunate American might die, but the doctor, after due examination, assured me that there was really no danger. For half an hour we sat and waited, until at length the man to whom the anaesthetic had been so mysteriously administered regained consciousness. It was a slow recovery, but when at length his dull eyes fell upon me he beckoned me to him and with excited gestures pointed to a leather-covered box beneath a table opposite. I pulled it out and tried the lock. It was still secure, and he nodded in satisfaction. Presently the doctor left, and I returned to bed, but imagine my blank amazement next morning when, just as I was sipping my coffee in my room, Blenkap dashed in, crying:—“I’ve been robbed! That fellow, Shacklock, did it! He must have crept into my room while you were away, rendered me senseless, took the key from the gold chain I always wear around my neck, opened the box, extracted the whole of the money and jewellery, relocked the box, and then had the audacity to replace the chain around my neck!”“But he is your friend?” I exclaimed, with astonishment.“I only met him a fortnight ago at the Grand at San Remo,” he answered. “He was there with a friend of his—probably a thief also. But he came on here alone with me. The fellow has taken over eighty thousand dollars!”I hurried with him to thequestore, or chief of police, and telegrams were quickly despatched hither and thither, but the thief had evidently got back to Genoa by the train at three o’clock in the morning, and embarked at once upon some ship for a Mediterranean port—Naples, Marseilles or Algiers. At any rate, though I remained a month in Nervi, we never heard further either of the easy-going naval man, or of the eighty thousand dollars in American notes and negotiable securities. Without doubt it was intended by the thief, or thieves, to throw the first suspicion upon myself, but fortunately the night-porter stated most positively that he had seen the lieutenant coming from his friend, Blenkap’s room, ten minutes before my return with the doctor. The man had left the main door of the hotel ajar in order to admit us, and it was evident that by that means the thief got away unnoticed.The robbery had been an ingenious and audacious one, and showed the clever cunning of a master-hand.As you have, no doubt, already guessed, the man who so cleverly got hold of Blenkap’s money, and who had escaped so swiftly, I now recognised as the affable Lieutenant Shacklock, the intimate friend and guest of James Harding Miller.Was not his presence in that house sufficient to convince me that what had been suspected of Miller was more than a mere surmise? It had been declared that Lucie’s father, though a county gentleman, was also head of the most daring association of criminals in Europe. It seemed to me that Gordon-Wright, alias Shacklock, was one of his ingenious lieutenants whom he was entertaining in his cosy retreat—planning some new scheme perhaps—and who was, at the same time, an ardent admirer of the beautiful girl whose unhappiness and deadly peril was so great a mystery.
Whether the recognition had been mutual I was unable to decide.
If it had the newcomer made no sign, but extended his hand and greeted me, while I, striving to remain unconcerned, returned his welcome.
“Your father tells me he’s driving over to Swanage at half-past ten, Miss Lucie. Are you coming with us?” he asked, as he lounged with his hands deep in his jacket pockets, and an after-breakfast cigarette between his lips.
“I don’t think so,” was her reply. “I’m lunching with the Strong girls.”
“Oh, do come,” urged the dark-faced man. “You’d be back before one. You promised me yesterday that you’d drive me somewhere.”
“So I will—to-morrow, perhaps.”
I watched the man’s thin shaven face, and looked into his grey eyes in silence. His was a countenance striking on account of its clear-cut features, its mobile mouth, its high intellectual forehead, and its protruding jaws—an eminently clever, good-humoured face, and yet the expression in the eyes was, somehow, out of keeping with the rest of the countenance.
He laughed lightly, making some chaffing remarks, whereat the slight flush that arose in Lucie’s cheeks told me that she was not altogether averse to his evident admiration. He was a pleasant fellow—but, nevertheless, a mystery.
His appearance there had, for two reasons, startled me. The first was because I had no idea that Miller had a male visitor, and the second was because I recognised him as a person whom I had long desired to rediscover.
The last occasion I had seen him he had called himself Lieutenant Shacklock, R.N. It was in very different circumstances. He had worn a moustache and beard, and affected a gold-rimmed monocle. His personal appearance as he stood there laughing with Lucie was, however, very different, yet those cold grey, close-set eyes were the same. They wore an expression that could never be altered or disguised.
We spoke together once or twice, and I began to feel convinced that he was unaware of our previous meeting.
“Yes,” he remarked to me. “Beautiful old place this. I wonder my friend Miller doesn’t live here more. If I were in his place I’m sure I’d prefer it to wandering about the Continent.”
“You’ve been here before, I suppose?”
“Many times. Miller, when he’s home, generally invites me,” and then he turned to Lucie, by whom he was undoubtedly attracted. Little wonder, indeed, when one recognised how handsome she was.
I again stood silent, my eyes turned upon the spruce man’s face—the face that brought back to my mind a curious and mysterious incident in my wandering life abroad.
When one travels on the Continent as I had travelled, spending years of aimless wandering and lazy idling in the halls and smoking-rooms of hotels of the first order, making passing acquaintances of men and women of all grades and all nations, listening to music in illuminated gardens, and sometimes wandering with some fairtable-d’hôteacquaintance beneath the stars, one meets with some queer adventures. I had met with a good many. One of them I now found myself recalling.
Three winters before I found myself, after the brilliant season at Monte Carlo, at a little sea-side resort called Nervi, which, as travellers know, is a few miles beyond Genoa, on the way to Rome. You have possibly looked out of the train and there obtained a glimpse of the blue Mediterranean beating upon its brown rocks; you have admired the splendid white villas of the Genoese merchants, and you have, probably, noticed behind the little railway station a great hotel garden, with green lawns and a splendid avenue of spreading palms.
In that garden one April night after dinner I was strolling and smoking with two men, who were friends. We had met casually in the hotel a few days before; a pleasant word or two, cocktails in company, a proffered cigar, and we at once became acquaintances, as is the way of cosmopolitans. The elder was named Blenkap, a man of sixty, a wealthy ironmaster from Pittsburg; while Shacklock, the other, was much younger, smart, and had just retired from the Navy.
That night we wandered through the gardens to the sea, which lay like glass beneath the light of the white Italian moon, with the waves sighing softly upon the shingle. But Blenkap, after half an hour, complained of being rather unwell, and while the lieutenant went into the town to purchase some cigarettes I accompanied his friend back to the hotel.
It was then about ten o’clock, and refusing to allow me to call a doctor, the American went to his room. At two o’clock in the morning I was awakened by the night-porter, who said that number ninety-seven had asked him to call me. Hastily I dressed, and, on going along the corridor, found Blenkap in bed in a state of collapse.
“I’m very ill; the pains in my head are terrible,” he whispered to me. “Will you call a doctor—somebody who speaks English, if possible?”
His white face alarmed me, and I left him and went along to the lieutenant’s room at the other end of the corridor. To my knock there was, however, no response, but on turning the handle and opening the door, I found the room in darkness and empty. He had not returned. Therefore I hurried out, and in half an hour returned with an Italian doctor who spoke a little English.
On entering the room I noticed that the doctor sniffed the air mysteriously as he crossed to the patient, who I now saw was unconscious. He examined him, asked me a few brief questions, and then fixing his eyes upon me, exclaimed in Italian:—
“This is a rather curious affair, signore.”
“Why?” I inquired. “The gentleman was taken this evening while we were walking together. He complained of bad pains in his head and stomach.”
“Yes, but who gave him the anaesthetic?” asked the doctor.
“Anaesthetic!” I exclaimed. “Why nobody, as far as I know.”
“Well, chloroform has been given him, and quite recently. He struggled against it—don’t you see?” and he indicated the American’s clenched hands and the disordered bed. “How long were you absent?”
“About half an hour.”
“Then some one must have come here while you were away,” the doctor declared, stroking his dark beard very thoughtfully. At first I was alarmed lest the unfortunate American might die, but the doctor, after due examination, assured me that there was really no danger. For half an hour we sat and waited, until at length the man to whom the anaesthetic had been so mysteriously administered regained consciousness. It was a slow recovery, but when at length his dull eyes fell upon me he beckoned me to him and with excited gestures pointed to a leather-covered box beneath a table opposite. I pulled it out and tried the lock. It was still secure, and he nodded in satisfaction. Presently the doctor left, and I returned to bed, but imagine my blank amazement next morning when, just as I was sipping my coffee in my room, Blenkap dashed in, crying:—
“I’ve been robbed! That fellow, Shacklock, did it! He must have crept into my room while you were away, rendered me senseless, took the key from the gold chain I always wear around my neck, opened the box, extracted the whole of the money and jewellery, relocked the box, and then had the audacity to replace the chain around my neck!”
“But he is your friend?” I exclaimed, with astonishment.
“I only met him a fortnight ago at the Grand at San Remo,” he answered. “He was there with a friend of his—probably a thief also. But he came on here alone with me. The fellow has taken over eighty thousand dollars!”
I hurried with him to thequestore, or chief of police, and telegrams were quickly despatched hither and thither, but the thief had evidently got back to Genoa by the train at three o’clock in the morning, and embarked at once upon some ship for a Mediterranean port—Naples, Marseilles or Algiers. At any rate, though I remained a month in Nervi, we never heard further either of the easy-going naval man, or of the eighty thousand dollars in American notes and negotiable securities. Without doubt it was intended by the thief, or thieves, to throw the first suspicion upon myself, but fortunately the night-porter stated most positively that he had seen the lieutenant coming from his friend, Blenkap’s room, ten minutes before my return with the doctor. The man had left the main door of the hotel ajar in order to admit us, and it was evident that by that means the thief got away unnoticed.
The robbery had been an ingenious and audacious one, and showed the clever cunning of a master-hand.
As you have, no doubt, already guessed, the man who so cleverly got hold of Blenkap’s money, and who had escaped so swiftly, I now recognised as the affable Lieutenant Shacklock, the intimate friend and guest of James Harding Miller.
Was not his presence in that house sufficient to convince me that what had been suspected of Miller was more than a mere surmise? It had been declared that Lucie’s father, though a county gentleman, was also head of the most daring association of criminals in Europe. It seemed to me that Gordon-Wright, alias Shacklock, was one of his ingenious lieutenants whom he was entertaining in his cosy retreat—planning some new scheme perhaps—and who was, at the same time, an ardent admirer of the beautiful girl whose unhappiness and deadly peril was so great a mystery.
Chapter Eighteen.Plight and Pursuit.I left the Manor with my eyes dim and my heart beating fast with a sickening pain. I moved down the road without quite well knowing where I went.My well-beloved had again escaped me. It was my duty to follow her, to learn the truth, to save her—my duty to her, as well as to myself.Mystery followed upon the back of mystery. In those brief days, since the advent of the fugitive Italian at Shepherd’s Bush, I had become enmeshed in a veritable web of entangled events which seemed to grow more extraordinary and more inexplicable every hour.My meeting with the man Shacklock proved, beyond doubt, the source of Mr Miller’s income. Finding Lucie’s father such an affable and gentlemanly man, I had entirely refused to credit Sammy’s story. Nevertheless, Lucie herself had corroborated it, inasmuch as she had described her love at Enghien and its tragic sequel; while I, myself, had recognised in Gordon-Wright the clever international thief who had decamped with Blenkap’s valuables. And this man was actually Miller’s most intimate friend!To Lucie I made no mention of my intention, but half an hour later I was in a dogcart hired from the “Lion,” driving at a furious pace over the Ballard Down into Swanage, where, at the hotel I had previously visited on my arrival, I inquired for Miss Murray.“The lady left with a party in a motor-car an hour ago,” was the reply of the young person in black satin, whose duty appeared to be to keep the books and order about the waiters.“Gone!” I ejaculated. “Where?”“Well, when people go off in a car we don’t generally know their destination. Motor-cars are so very uncertain, you see.”“Did they arrive here on the car?” I inquired eagerly. “No. Mr Murray and his daughter came over by boat from Bournemouth. The motor arrived last night with a gentleman, a lady and the chauffeur.”“Pardon me,” exclaimed a man’s voice at my elbow—the hotel proprietor who had overheard all our conversation. “Are you a detective?” he asked, in a rather low, confidential tone.“No. Why?”“Well—” he hesitated. “Only because there seemed to be something rather funny about Mr Murray—that’s all.”“Something funny about him? How?”“Well, from the moment he came here, till the moment he went away, he never came out of his room. And when he did, he was wearing a motor-coat with the collar turned up around his chin and goggles which entirely disguised him.”“Not at all a suspicious circumstance, surely?” I remarked, though inwardly much interested. “On these white dusty roads every one must wear goggles.”“Of course. But when people come to Swanage they generally go out and look about the town and the bay. Mr Murray, however, shut himself up and saw nobody, while his daughter drove over to Studland, where she stayed the night and returned about an hour before the motor started.”“I’m going to follow that motor. I have a reason,” I said. “Don’t you think the chauffeur might have told one of the stable-hands or garage-men—if you have a garage here—as to his destination? There’s a kind of freemasonry among chauffeurs, by which all of them know each other’s roads.”“I’ll see,” replied the obliging proprietor. “Come with me.”He conducted me through to the back of the house, where a large courtyard had been recently converted into a garage. There were several cars in the coach-houses around, while in the centre of the yard a clean-shaven young man was turning a hose upon a dark red 16-horse “Fiat.”“Gibbs, where has that blue car gone to this morning—the one that left an hour ago?”“The 40 ‘Mercédès,’ sir? Gone to some place beyond Exeter, sir. They’re on a big tour.”“You don’t know the name of the place?” I asked the man anxiously.“The chauffeur did tell me, but it was a funny name, an’ I’ve forgotten.”“They’ve gone direct to Exeter, in any case?”“Yes—by Dorchester, Chard and Honiton. ’E asked me about the road.”“How far is it to Exeter?”“About seventy-eight or eighty miles.”“I could get there by train before they arrived,” I remarked.“Ah! I doubt it, sir,” was the man’s reply. “That’s a good car they’ve got, and if you went by train you’d ’ave to go right up to Yeovil. They’d be through Exeter long before you got there.”“That’s so,” remarked the hotel proprietor. “From here to Exeter by rail is a long cross-country journey.”“Then could I get a car? Is any one of these for hire?”“This one ’ere belongs to Saunders, down in the town. ’E lets it out sometimes,” replied Gibbs, indicating the red car he had been cleaning.“Then I’ll have it—and you’ll drive me, eh? We must overtake them.”“Very good, sir,” replied the man, and then I returned to the hotel to telephone to the owner and fix the price.Gibbs quickly filled the tank with petrol, poured water into the radiator, examined the tyres, pumping one that he found a little down; then he washed himself, put on his leather jacket and cap, and mounted to the wheel.A quarter of an hour after I had first entered the garage I was sitting at the chauffeur’s side as the car slowly made its way up the crooked quaint old-fashioned main street of Swanage and out on the big white road that ran up hill and down valley, the picturesque highway to Dorchester. Up to Corfe Castle the way was nearly all uphill, but the “Fiat” ran splendidly, and in the narrow winding road where we met many pleasure parties inchars-à-bancGibbs quickly showed himself a competent driver.Seldom he blew his horn, yet he handled the car with a care that at once convinced me that he was a reliable chauffeur.As we skirted the great mound upon which stood the cyclopean walls of Corfe, magnificent relics of the bygone feudal age, and ran again out of the little village and up on to Purbeck Hill, he handed me a pair of goggles, saying:—“You’d better have these, sir. We’re going through a lot of dust presently, and we’ve a dead head-wind.”I put them on, and as I did so he increased the speed, remarking:—“Fortunately, there ain’t any police traps ’ere. We aren’t like they are in Surrey. I got fined a fiver at Guildford a month ago, an’ I was only goin’ fourteen miles an ’our. But it ain’t any good defendin’. The police are always in the right,” he added, with a sigh.“Do you think that we shall overtake them?” I inquired anxiously, for at all hazards I wanted to see and speak again with Ella. What she had told me excited my curiosity and aroused my determination that she should make no further self-sacrifice.“It all depends,” was his vague answer. “They’ve got a ‘forty,’ you know, an’ can do these hills much better than we can. But they may get a puncture or a tyre-burst.”“But as to speed. They won’t go quicker than we are travelling?” I inquired.“Not if they don’t want to get ’ad up,” he grinned, and I then recognised that we were on a wide flat road, travelling at nearly forty miles an hour, and raising a perfect wall of dust behind us. “There’s one or two level-crossings, too, that may delay ’em.”“And us also, eh?”“Perhaps,” he said. “But what I’m going to do is to go at a greater speed than they’ve gone. We’ve got nearly an hour and a half to make up, by some means or other.”And lowering his head he set his shoulders in his seat and still increased the speed until we flew at a pace such as I had never before travelled in any motor-car. The engines ticked away with rhythmical music, the machinery hummed with that even tone which tells the practised motorist that his cylinders are working properly, and without once pulling up, we soon found ourselves slowing down to enter the quiet old county town of Dorchester.At Charminster, where the two high-roads parted, we had news of the blue car we were following. A man breaking stones at the roadside informed us that it had passed about half an hour in front of us.“It was going at a terrible speed,” he added, in broad Dorset dialect. “They’ll get summoned—you see.”This caused us to put on more pace, heedless of whether any pair of constables—or hedgehogs as motorists call them—were lurking near the road. Gibbs put on all the speed he could get out of his engines, and we literally flew through Stratton and Frampton. He was, it seemed, determined to earn the couple of sovereigns I had promised him as reward if successful.The afternoon went slowly by. The sky became overcast, and there was a slight shower, but we did not pull up, tearing ever onward through Chard, over the Devonshire border and round the big hill of Dumpdon to old-fashioned but unpicturesque Honiton.We had now only seventeen miles or so before reaching Exeter. Slowly we descended the main street which dropped very steeply to a bridge over a small stream, and then out again upon the broad white undulating road, fringed almost continuously by trees and whitewashed and thatched cottages—the main road that runs from London through Hounslow to the west.Suddenly we dipped beneath a railway bridge, and the road rising again our eager eyes saw about a mile in front of us a travelling cloud of dust. As we looked the car before us went round a slight bend in the flat open road, and there showed a flash of bright blue.“Look!” cried Gibbs excitedly, “that’s the car! We must overtake them,” and setting his teeth again he put on all speed possible.Slowly, almost imperceptibly, we seemed to be overtaking my fugitive love who was, of course, all unconscious of being followed, when, just as we ran over the bridge which crosses the Clyst, there was a loud report like a pistol shot, and Gibbs was compelled to instantly apply the brake, uttering a loud exclamation of disappointment and chagrin.Our off rear tyre had burst!My love would be in Exeter and beyond reach long before we could put on a new tube and tyre.I stood watching the fast receding car, my heart sinking within me. Ella was before my very eyes, escaping me—never to return.I knew that the intention was to evade me in future. And yet how madly I loved her. No matter what she said or what she did, she was still mine—mine!
I left the Manor with my eyes dim and my heart beating fast with a sickening pain. I moved down the road without quite well knowing where I went.
My well-beloved had again escaped me. It was my duty to follow her, to learn the truth, to save her—my duty to her, as well as to myself.
Mystery followed upon the back of mystery. In those brief days, since the advent of the fugitive Italian at Shepherd’s Bush, I had become enmeshed in a veritable web of entangled events which seemed to grow more extraordinary and more inexplicable every hour.
My meeting with the man Shacklock proved, beyond doubt, the source of Mr Miller’s income. Finding Lucie’s father such an affable and gentlemanly man, I had entirely refused to credit Sammy’s story. Nevertheless, Lucie herself had corroborated it, inasmuch as she had described her love at Enghien and its tragic sequel; while I, myself, had recognised in Gordon-Wright the clever international thief who had decamped with Blenkap’s valuables. And this man was actually Miller’s most intimate friend!
To Lucie I made no mention of my intention, but half an hour later I was in a dogcart hired from the “Lion,” driving at a furious pace over the Ballard Down into Swanage, where, at the hotel I had previously visited on my arrival, I inquired for Miss Murray.
“The lady left with a party in a motor-car an hour ago,” was the reply of the young person in black satin, whose duty appeared to be to keep the books and order about the waiters.
“Gone!” I ejaculated. “Where?”
“Well, when people go off in a car we don’t generally know their destination. Motor-cars are so very uncertain, you see.”
“Did they arrive here on the car?” I inquired eagerly. “No. Mr Murray and his daughter came over by boat from Bournemouth. The motor arrived last night with a gentleman, a lady and the chauffeur.”
“Pardon me,” exclaimed a man’s voice at my elbow—the hotel proprietor who had overheard all our conversation. “Are you a detective?” he asked, in a rather low, confidential tone.
“No. Why?”
“Well—” he hesitated. “Only because there seemed to be something rather funny about Mr Murray—that’s all.”
“Something funny about him? How?”
“Well, from the moment he came here, till the moment he went away, he never came out of his room. And when he did, he was wearing a motor-coat with the collar turned up around his chin and goggles which entirely disguised him.”
“Not at all a suspicious circumstance, surely?” I remarked, though inwardly much interested. “On these white dusty roads every one must wear goggles.”
“Of course. But when people come to Swanage they generally go out and look about the town and the bay. Mr Murray, however, shut himself up and saw nobody, while his daughter drove over to Studland, where she stayed the night and returned about an hour before the motor started.”
“I’m going to follow that motor. I have a reason,” I said. “Don’t you think the chauffeur might have told one of the stable-hands or garage-men—if you have a garage here—as to his destination? There’s a kind of freemasonry among chauffeurs, by which all of them know each other’s roads.”
“I’ll see,” replied the obliging proprietor. “Come with me.”
He conducted me through to the back of the house, where a large courtyard had been recently converted into a garage. There were several cars in the coach-houses around, while in the centre of the yard a clean-shaven young man was turning a hose upon a dark red 16-horse “Fiat.”
“Gibbs, where has that blue car gone to this morning—the one that left an hour ago?”
“The 40 ‘Mercédès,’ sir? Gone to some place beyond Exeter, sir. They’re on a big tour.”
“You don’t know the name of the place?” I asked the man anxiously.
“The chauffeur did tell me, but it was a funny name, an’ I’ve forgotten.”
“They’ve gone direct to Exeter, in any case?”
“Yes—by Dorchester, Chard and Honiton. ’E asked me about the road.”
“How far is it to Exeter?”
“About seventy-eight or eighty miles.”
“I could get there by train before they arrived,” I remarked.
“Ah! I doubt it, sir,” was the man’s reply. “That’s a good car they’ve got, and if you went by train you’d ’ave to go right up to Yeovil. They’d be through Exeter long before you got there.”
“That’s so,” remarked the hotel proprietor. “From here to Exeter by rail is a long cross-country journey.”
“Then could I get a car? Is any one of these for hire?”
“This one ’ere belongs to Saunders, down in the town. ’E lets it out sometimes,” replied Gibbs, indicating the red car he had been cleaning.
“Then I’ll have it—and you’ll drive me, eh? We must overtake them.”
“Very good, sir,” replied the man, and then I returned to the hotel to telephone to the owner and fix the price.
Gibbs quickly filled the tank with petrol, poured water into the radiator, examined the tyres, pumping one that he found a little down; then he washed himself, put on his leather jacket and cap, and mounted to the wheel.
A quarter of an hour after I had first entered the garage I was sitting at the chauffeur’s side as the car slowly made its way up the crooked quaint old-fashioned main street of Swanage and out on the big white road that ran up hill and down valley, the picturesque highway to Dorchester. Up to Corfe Castle the way was nearly all uphill, but the “Fiat” ran splendidly, and in the narrow winding road where we met many pleasure parties inchars-à-bancGibbs quickly showed himself a competent driver.
Seldom he blew his horn, yet he handled the car with a care that at once convinced me that he was a reliable chauffeur.
As we skirted the great mound upon which stood the cyclopean walls of Corfe, magnificent relics of the bygone feudal age, and ran again out of the little village and up on to Purbeck Hill, he handed me a pair of goggles, saying:—
“You’d better have these, sir. We’re going through a lot of dust presently, and we’ve a dead head-wind.”
I put them on, and as I did so he increased the speed, remarking:—
“Fortunately, there ain’t any police traps ’ere. We aren’t like they are in Surrey. I got fined a fiver at Guildford a month ago, an’ I was only goin’ fourteen miles an ’our. But it ain’t any good defendin’. The police are always in the right,” he added, with a sigh.
“Do you think that we shall overtake them?” I inquired anxiously, for at all hazards I wanted to see and speak again with Ella. What she had told me excited my curiosity and aroused my determination that she should make no further self-sacrifice.
“It all depends,” was his vague answer. “They’ve got a ‘forty,’ you know, an’ can do these hills much better than we can. But they may get a puncture or a tyre-burst.”
“But as to speed. They won’t go quicker than we are travelling?” I inquired.
“Not if they don’t want to get ’ad up,” he grinned, and I then recognised that we were on a wide flat road, travelling at nearly forty miles an hour, and raising a perfect wall of dust behind us. “There’s one or two level-crossings, too, that may delay ’em.”
“And us also, eh?”
“Perhaps,” he said. “But what I’m going to do is to go at a greater speed than they’ve gone. We’ve got nearly an hour and a half to make up, by some means or other.”
And lowering his head he set his shoulders in his seat and still increased the speed until we flew at a pace such as I had never before travelled in any motor-car. The engines ticked away with rhythmical music, the machinery hummed with that even tone which tells the practised motorist that his cylinders are working properly, and without once pulling up, we soon found ourselves slowing down to enter the quiet old county town of Dorchester.
At Charminster, where the two high-roads parted, we had news of the blue car we were following. A man breaking stones at the roadside informed us that it had passed about half an hour in front of us.
“It was going at a terrible speed,” he added, in broad Dorset dialect. “They’ll get summoned—you see.”
This caused us to put on more pace, heedless of whether any pair of constables—or hedgehogs as motorists call them—were lurking near the road. Gibbs put on all the speed he could get out of his engines, and we literally flew through Stratton and Frampton. He was, it seemed, determined to earn the couple of sovereigns I had promised him as reward if successful.
The afternoon went slowly by. The sky became overcast, and there was a slight shower, but we did not pull up, tearing ever onward through Chard, over the Devonshire border and round the big hill of Dumpdon to old-fashioned but unpicturesque Honiton.
We had now only seventeen miles or so before reaching Exeter. Slowly we descended the main street which dropped very steeply to a bridge over a small stream, and then out again upon the broad white undulating road, fringed almost continuously by trees and whitewashed and thatched cottages—the main road that runs from London through Hounslow to the west.
Suddenly we dipped beneath a railway bridge, and the road rising again our eager eyes saw about a mile in front of us a travelling cloud of dust. As we looked the car before us went round a slight bend in the flat open road, and there showed a flash of bright blue.
“Look!” cried Gibbs excitedly, “that’s the car! We must overtake them,” and setting his teeth again he put on all speed possible.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, we seemed to be overtaking my fugitive love who was, of course, all unconscious of being followed, when, just as we ran over the bridge which crosses the Clyst, there was a loud report like a pistol shot, and Gibbs was compelled to instantly apply the brake, uttering a loud exclamation of disappointment and chagrin.
Our off rear tyre had burst!
My love would be in Exeter and beyond reach long before we could put on a new tube and tyre.
I stood watching the fast receding car, my heart sinking within me. Ella was before my very eyes, escaping me—never to return.
I knew that the intention was to evade me in future. And yet how madly I loved her. No matter what she said or what she did, she was still mine—mine!