William Le Queux (continued 3)

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 in chars-à-banc Gibbs 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!

Chapter Nineteen.

The Blue Motor-Car.

Gibbs was the first to speak. He examined the burst critically, glanced at the fast disappearing car, and, turning to me, asked:—

“Shall we still try, sir? If you’ll help me we’ll be on the road again in twenty minutes.”

“Yes,” I cried, “let’s try,” and throwing off my coat, I began in earnest to take out the spare tyre while he got out the jack and tools.

While I unscrewed the bolts, he jacked up the car, and in ten minutes the burst tyre was off, and we were adjusting the new one. A new inner tube I found under the front seat, and we soon adjusted it, Gibbs pumping it up while I put away the tools and strapped on the broken tyre.

I glanced at the clock on the car, and saw that we had been just eighteen minutes, then up we got, and, without much preliminary, moved away again tearing at breakneck speed through Ottery St. Mary and a dreary little place called Honiton Clyst, then over a bad road among small and dingy houses from Heavitree into Exeter. At the Gordon memorial-lamp we took the right-hand road, found the tram-line and passed up Paris Street into High Street, and on to the cathedral, where we pulled up before the “Clarence,” hoping to obtain some news of the blue “Mercédès.”

It, however, had not been seen. At Pople’s, at the “Globe” and the “Half Moon” we inquired, but without success. The car had not been seen in any of the main streets of the city, therefore we could only conclude that it had passed round the outskirts and taken either the Crediton or the Teignmouth road. From south of the city a dozen different ways lead off the Okehampton road, therefore it seemed certain that our unfortunate accident had negatived all our attempts to overtake Mr Murray and his party.

Again we were thwarted, until Gibbs suddenly recollected that in Paris Street we had passed a cycle works where petrol was sold, and we turned the car and made eager inquiry there.

Yes. A big blue car had stopped there, and refilled its tank about an hour before. The chauffeur had inquired the road to Plymouth, and the manager had advised him to take the road by Bickington, Buckfastleigh and Ivybridge. The distance to Plymouth, we were told, was forty-four miles, therefore thanking our informant we reversed the car and were soon out again on the old coach-road through Alphington and Shillingford, hoping that some similar mishap to that which had occurred to us might delay the party we were endeavouring to overtake.

Again we raced along against time, up over the Great Haldon hills where we had grand views across the open country, through old-fashioned villages of the true Devon type, past a quaint old mill with high sloping roof, and narrowly escaping a collision with a farmer’s cart just as we were entering Bickington.

Twice we inquired of men we met on the road whether they had seen the car, and each reply was in the affirmative. Therefore we kept an eager look-out far ahead to distinguish the receding cloud of dust which would betray its presence.

At full speed we tore along, the motor humming its rhythmic music and the dust rising in a dense column behind. I shrewdly suspect that before starting Gibbs had smeared a little oil across part of the number both front and rear, in order that the dust should render it puzzling to any lurking constable.

“If we don’t get fined for this, sir, we ought to,” declared Gibbs, with a laugh, looking at me through his goggles, as we sped across a wide-open stretch of moor with the head-wind blowing the white dust full in our faces. Down a steep hill we ran until, rounding a sudden bend in the road, an exclamation of joy escaped us both, as we saw the car that had evaded us so long, stationary.

The chauffeur was in the act of putting in a new inner tube to one of the back tyres, while the passengers had descended and were walking about the road. A couple of farm labourers were looking on, their hands stuck idly in their pockets, and as we approached all turned to look.

My first impulse was to stop and greet Ella, but next instant it occurred to me that as I wore goggles, and an overcoat that she had never seen, I was effectively disguised.

“Slow down, but don’t stop,” I said to Gibbs, and a few moments later we passed the party, without, however, taking any notice of them.

The car was, as the man beside me had said, a splendid “Mercédès” of the latest type, one of the best I had ever seen upon the road. The chauffeur was a smart fellow in uniform, probably French, and the party who were awaiting the repairs consisted of Ella—in a neat champagne-coloured motor-coat, with flat hat and a veil of the same colour with a plate of talc in front instead of glasses—a dark-haired lady somewhat older, also in motor clothes, a youngish man with a round boyish clean-shaven face, and lastly Mr Murray. The latter had so altered that had I met him in the street I should certainly not have recognised him. His beard was now white, his hair grey, and upon his face was a hard careworn look, in place of the easy nonchalant air he wore in those well-remembered days when I had been a welcome guest at Wichenford.

Ella was seated upon a stile chatting to her female companion, while her father was standing on the road some distance away, in earnest conversation with the young man.

Owing to my disguising dark goggles, I was able to look straight into their faces without fear of recognition. This was fortunate, for at present I had no intention of revealing my identity.

Could that round-faced, fresh-complexioned man be the fellow who, according to my love’s own admission, held her in his power?

The very suspicion maddened me, causing my blood to rise.

Murray appeared to be speaking to him in confidence, giving him certain instructions to which he was enlisting attentively, with brows knit, as though what he heard was far from reassuring.

Who was the man?

His identity and his relation towards my well-beloved I determined to ascertain.

“Let’s go on slowly into the next place, whatever it is,” I said.

“We’re about five miles from Ashburton, sir,” Gibbs replied.

“I want them to overtake us, and then we can follow them to their destination,” I said.

“They’re going to Plymouth. Wouldn’t it be better for us to go on there an’ wait for ’em?” suggested the man. “It’s now five o’clock, and they’ll probably put up there for the night.”

“No. They are going farther than Plymouth,” I said. “It’s a thousand pities you can’t remember where the chauffeur said they were going.”

“Perhaps the ladies ’ull want tea. If so, they’ll probably pull up at the ‘Golden Lion,’ just as we go into Ashburton. It’s the place where the coaches stop.”

“Then let’s stop there. If they also pull up, well and good. If they don’t, we can follow them,” I said, and five minutes later we came to a standstill before the inn where, at the back, I found a delightful garden sloping down towards the valley, where the blaze of colour and the scent of flowers were refreshing after the heat and dust of the great highway. Without removing my goggles I cast myself into a seat, and ordered a glass of “shandygaff.” Gibbs I had left outside with the car, ordering him to come and tell me when the party passed. That peaceful old garden was just the place in which to sit on a hot summer’s afternoon with all sight and sound of town shut out; only the green hills opposite and their all-pervading fragrance.

Suddenly, from where I sat, I heard the whirr of an approaching car which came to a standstill before the inn. Would Ella come through into the garden?

I did not wish to meet her with her friends. It was my desire to see her alone. Therefore I jumped to my feet and walked away to the farther end of the garden.

As I expected they came, all four of them, seated themselves at the table I had just vacated, and ordered tea.

For five minutes or so I watched them. Ella, with her veil raised, was talking and laughing merrily with the round-faced young man, while he, bending towards her across the table, appeared fascinated by her glance.

I bit my lip, and turning, made my way through the inn and out into the road, where both cars were standing, and both chauffeurs were gossiping.

For another five minutes I waited, then Gibbs, approaching me, touched his cap, and inquired if I were ready, adding under his breath:—

“I’ve found out where they’re goin’, sir. There’s some mystery about them, I believe. I’ll tell you when we get away.”

Chapter Twenty.

Reveals the Truth.

“They’re goin’ to a place called Upper Wooton, about half way between Saltash and Callington, on the Launceston road. I know the village—quite a tiny place,” Gibbs said, as we went up the picturesque street of Ashburton.

“Then we’d better go straight on there.”

“They’re goin’ through Plymouth, but the most direct way, and much shorter, is through Tavistock, which would bring us right into the cross-roads at Callington. We’d save a couple of hours by that, and, after all, they’ve got a ‘forty,’ you know, while ours is only a ‘sixteen’. They’ll make better pace than us up the hills.”

“Very well,” I said, “I leave it to you. We must be there first, in any case. Are they staying the night there?”

“Their man says so. ’E’s a stranger, however, and ’e says they’re a rum party.”

“Oh! Why?” I asked in quick surprise.

“Well—sir,” responded Gibbs, somewhat reluctantly, “it ain’t for me to repeat what ’e said, seein’ as they’re friends o’ yourn.”

“Oh! whatever you say will make no difference,” I assured him. “Besides, they’re not exactly my friends. Two of them I’ve never seen before in my life. So you can speak quite frankly. Indeed, I’m very anxious to hear what makes their man think they are mysterious.” I recollected that Murray’s reticence had aroused the curiosity of the hotel proprietor at Swanage, and wondered what else had occurred to cause the chauffeur to suspect that something was wrong.

“The car belongs to somebody named Rusden, who lives in Worcestershire, and the chauffeur is in his employ. Mr Rusden has lent the car to the party,” Gibbs explained. “The chauffeur started from Stourbridge yesterday morning, with orders to meet a lady and gentleman at Chippenham station at midnight last night, and take ’em on all through the night to Swanage. There ’e picked up the gentleman and the young lady, and after two hours’ rest was ordered to drive on down to Plymouth with all possible speed.”

“But what makes him think there’s any mystery about them? He, no doubt, received orders from his master.”

“No, ’e didn’t. That’s just it. Mr Rusden told him to go to Chippenham and take the lady and gentleman to Aylesbury, whereas they gave him orders entirely different. An’ besides that, the chauffeur overheard something this morning.”

“What did he overhear?”

“The two men were talking together, and the elder said ’e hoped as ’ow they wouldn’t be followed, or the whole show ’ud be give away.”

“Curious,” I remarked. “Very curious.”

“Yes, sir. ’E told me as ’ow all along the road they’ve been urgin’ ’im to go faster, but ’e wasn’t goin’ to risk being caught by a ‘heg’og’. ’E’s evidently rather troubled, because ’e don’t know what ’is master ’ull say at ’im comin’ down here. Perhaps they’re flyin’ from the police—who knows?”

I laughed his suggestion into ridicule, yet at heart I was much puzzled. What could it mean?

Why were they in such fear of being followed?

“Well,” I said, “at any rate we’ll push on to Upper Wooton, and see what they’re going to do there.”

“Then we’ll go by Tavistock. The road is just off on the right, about a mile or so farther on,” my companion said. “We ought to be there before dark, if we get no punctures,” and he drew down his goggles from his cap and increased the speed of the car.

Once or twice I looked back, but saw no sign of the blue car following us. Murray and his friends were, no doubt, quietly having their tea in that pretty old garden.

For nearly an hour I sat in rigid silence, as one so often does for long periods when motoring. Was that round-faced fellow upon whom Ella had smiled actually her lover? Who, I wondered, was the elder woman? And why had they come to Chippenham at midnight to be met by a motor-car and drive on through the night? There was certainly some motive in that long night ride.

Was it possible that they were really escaping? It certainly seemed very much like it.

Ella’s movements in leaving Lucie and her father so suddenly, and in flying from me when she had confessed that she still loved me, were all suspicious. Some very strong and sinister motive underlay it all—of that I felt absolutely convinced.

Darker clouds gathered over the hills between Two Bridges and Tavistock, and another sharp shower fell, making us uncomfortably wet, but we never, for one moment, slackened speed. The rain laid the dust, for which we were thankful. At Gunnislake, just as the twilight was falling, we crossed the Cornish border, and by lighting-up time we were at the cross-roads outside Callington, with only four miles farther to negotiate.

This we quickly accomplished, at last running into a quaint old-world Cornish village which Gibbs informed me was the destination of the suspicious quartette.

There was but one inn, “The Crown,” and putting the car into the coach-house there, we ordered dinner. Cold meat and beer were all that the landlord could offer, but I ate ravenously, my ears all the while keenly on the alert for the hum of the car which we had outstripped.

After I had eaten I went out into the semi-darkness and looked round the quiet peaceful old village street of snug thatched cottages, the row broken by a red brick chapel and a corrugated iron church-room.

Only one gentleman lived in the vicinity, so the landlord informed me. His name was Mr Gordon-Wright, a London gentleman, and he lived at the “Glen,” which we had passed about half a mile before entering the village. Gordon-Wright! And this was his hiding-place!

Twilight had deepened into night as I sat upon a rough bench outside the inn, my ears still strained in order to catch sound of the approach of the car.

Gibbs’ theory was that they had probably stopped to dine in Plymouth, and certainly that seemed a very feasible one.

Would they put up at the inn, I wondered? Or were they making their way to Gordon-Wright’s? Out of curiosity, and in order to kill time, I rose and strolled along the village across the bridge and up the steep hill on to the road down which we had descended.

In passing in the car I had no recollection of having noticed a house, but as I now approached on foot I saw on the left a large clump of trees, surrounding a big white house.

On nearer approach the “Glen” proved to be one of those ugly, inartistic, early Georgian structures which a later generation had covered with stucco, surrounded by a large but ill-kept flower-garden, and beyond a thick spinney, all being allowed to run wild and unattended.

The garden was shut off from the high-road by a high wall of red brick, but the gates were iron, and through them, as I passed, I could obtain a good view of the house, inasmuch as the drawing-room windows were open, and the lamps beneath their white silk shades revealed that the place was cheaply upholstered in a rather gaudy chintz. The hall door, too, was open, and within I recognised an air of need. The hall of every house is an index to the state of the finances of its owner.

I halted for a moment and peered through the gate. From what I saw I at once concluded that either the house had been let furnished for the summer or that Mr Gordon-Wright, alias Lieutenant Shacklock, was not overburdened with surplus wealth.

As I looked, a middle-aged and most respectable, but round-shouldered old man-servant crossed the hall, carrying a tray. He was evidently laying the dinner table.

A moment later a shadow within the drawing-room betrayed the presence of some one there, while to my nostrils came the fragrant smell of a very good cigar.

A suit-case had been deposited in the hall, and the man-servant, on his return, caught it up and disappeared with it up the red-carpeted stairs.

All this I was watching with idle curiosity, having nothing better to do, when of a sudden the distant note of a motor-horn reached my ear, causing me to start away from where I stood and turn back a few steps in the direction of the village.

My heart leaped within me. Far off I could see the reflection of the head-lights as the car came tearing through the village and up the road at headlong pace.

Was it the blue car? Would it pass on, and leave me behind, after all?

In a few moments the white lights swept into full view, and I stepped to the side of the road to allow them to pass, when, to my joy, the driver began to blow his horn violently, as though to announce his approach.

Yes! They were halting at the “Glen,” after all!

With loud trumpeting that echoed among the trees the car flashed past me, and came to a sudden stop before the iron gates, but ere it did so the gates were flung open wide by the servant, and a man came out of the house shouting them a warm and cheery welcome.

The bright rays from the head lamps shone full upon him, dazzling him and preventing my presence being revealed.

I saw his face, and my eyes became riveted upon it.

And while I stood there, breathless and stupefied, the party descended, laughing boisterously and exchanging greetings.

I looked again. Was it only some strange chimera of my vision? Could it be the amazing truth? What further bitterness had life in store for me?

My Ella was standing enfolded in the arms of the man who had greeted them, and he was at that moment kissing her fondly upon the lips before them all.

And the man? His countenance was, alas! only too familiar to me.

He was the fellow I had met only that very morning under Miller’s roof—the man whom I had known in Nervi as Lieutenant Shacklock, R.N.!

Chapter Twenty One.

The Peril of Ella Murray.

In an instant the bewildering mystery of it all became apparent.

The fellow Shacklock, the dark-faced man whom I could at once denounce to the police as a rogue and a thief, held her enthralled!

“Welcome, dearest!” he said, as his lips touched hers. “I hope you are not too tired.”

But I saw that she was pale, and that she shrank from his touch. Ah! yes! she loathed him.

Standing there in the shadow of the overhanging trees, I watched them all disappear into the house.

The servant in black, after carrying up their luggage, shut the gate, therefore I crept forward and peered into the drawing-room. It was, however, empty, for they had all passed upstairs to remove the stains of travel before sitting down to dinner.

A thousand weird thoughts surged through my brain. That man Gordon-Wright was my enemy, and I intended that he should not win my love.

The whole position of affairs was utterly incomprehensible. This man, whom I could prove to be a clever international thief, was the most intimate friend of James Harding Miller, gentleman, of Studland. While he had been visiting there, Ella had escaped from her father and gone to Studland, in all probability to see him, or to consult him upon some important matter. She had made no sign to the Millers that she was previously acquainted with their guest. The conclusion, therefore, was that both Lucie and her father were in utter ignorance of the curious truth. Ella had left suddenly and travelled by motor-car to Upper Wooton, while he must have left immediately after my departure from Studland, and travelled by train by way of Yeovil.

To Mr Murray and the rest of the party he appeared as though he had not been away from home. Only Ella knew the truth, and she was silent. That there was some extraordinary manoeuvre in progress I was convinced. The Murrays of Wichenford were one of the county families of Worcestershire, and Ella’s father had always been an upright, if rather proud man. He was, I knew, the very last person to associate with a man of Shacklock’s stamp had he but known his real character.

On the contrary, however, he had grasped the man’s hand warmly when he descended, saying:—

“Why, my dear fellow, it’s quite two months since we met! How are you?”

And the pseudo-lieutenant was equally enthusiastic in his welcome in return. He was the host; “the London gentleman” known locally as Mr Gordon-Wright.

This was by no means extraordinary. In our country villages and their vicinity hundreds of people are, at this moment, occupying big houses, and under assumed names passing themselves off for what they are not. Summer visitors to the rural districts are often a queer lot, and many a gentleman known as Mr Brown, the smug attendant at the village church, is in reality Mr Green whose means of livelihood would not bear looking into. From time to time a man is unmasked, and a paragraph appears in the papers, but such persons are usually far too wary when it is a matter of effacing their identity under the very nose of the police, and enjoy the confidence and esteem of both the villagers and “the county.”

So it evidently was with “Mr Gordon-Wright.”

Consumed by hatred, and longing to go forward and unmask him as the ingenious swindler who stole Blenkap’s money, I stood at the gate, eager to obtain another glimpse of the woman who he intended should be his victim.

What was the nature of his all-powerful influence over her, I wondered? She loved me still. Had she not admitted that? And yet she dare not break from this man whose life was one long living lie!

“Fortunately I’ve discovered you,” I said, between my teeth, speaking to myself. “You shall never wreck her happiness, that I’m determined! A word from me to Scotland Yard, and you will be arrested, my fine gentleman.” And I laughed, recollecting how entirely his future was in my hands.

He had already dressed for dinner before the arrival of the party, and I overheard him shouting to Murray not to trouble to change, it being so late. Then he came along the hall, and stood at the door, gazing straight in my direction, his hands in the pockets of his dinner-jacket, awaiting his guests.

He could not see me, I knew, for the roadway was rendered very dark at that point by the trees that almost met overhead. Therefore I watched his thin clean-shaven face, and saw upon its evil features an expression of intense anxiety which was certainly not there when we had met earlier that day in Dorsetshire.

Ella was the first to descend. She had exchanged her dark dress for a gown of pale blue Liberty silk, high at the throat, and, though simply made, it suited her admirably. The fellow turned at the sound of her footstep, and hurrying towards her, took her hand, and led her outside upon the gravelled drive.

“The others, of course, have no idea that I’ve been to Studland!” I heard him whisper to her anxiously as they stood there together in the shadow, away from the stream of light that shone from the open door.

“I told them nothing,” was her calm answer, in a voice that seemed inert and mechanical.

“I only arrived here an hour ago. I feared that you might be here before me. You, of course, delayed them by excuses, as I suggested.”

“Yes. We had tea on the way, and we came the longer way round, by Plymouth, as you told me.”

“It was lucky for you that you left the Millers as early as you did,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because they had a visitor. He came an hour or so after you’d gone. I found him talking to Lucie, and she introduced me. His name was Leaf.”

I saw that she started at mention of my name. But with admirable self-control she asked:—

“Well, and what did he want?”

“Wanted to see you. And what’s more, Lucie told me after he’d gone that he had once been engaged to you. Is that true?”

“I’ve known him a good many years,” was my loved one’s evasive answer, as though she feared to arouse his anger or jealousy by an acknowledgment of the truth.

“I ask you, Ella, a simple question—is what Lucie Miller has said true? Were you ever engaged to that man?” he asked very seriously.

“There was not an actual engagement,” was her answer, and I saw that she feared to tell him the truth.

What right had the fellow to question her? I had difficulty in restraining myself from rushing forward and boldly exposing him as the thief and adventurer he was.

“Lucie, in answer to my question, told me that you had lost sight of each other for several years, and that you believed him dead.”

“That is so.”

“And that he has been travelling on the Continent the whole time?”

“I believe he has,” was her reply, whereupon he remained in silence for some moments, as though reflecting deeply. Was it possible that, after all, he had recognised me as the man who he had intended should be his cat’s-paw in the Blenkap affair?

I felt certain that he was endeavouring to recall my face.

“Your father knows nothing of my friendship with Miller?” he asked suddenly, with some apprehension.

“I have told him nothing, as you forbade me.”

“Good. He must not know. It’s better not.”

“Why?”

“Well, because your father has a long-standing quarrel with Miller, has he not? If he knew we were friends he might not like it. Some men have curious prejudices,” he added.

His explanation apparently satisfied her, but he, on his part, returned to his previous questions regarding myself.

“Tell me,” he urged, “who is this fellow Leaf? If you were fond of him I surely have a right to know who and what he is?”

“He’s a gentleman whom I first knew years ago, soon after I came home from school.”

“And you fell in love with him, like every school-girl does, eh?”

She nodded in the affirmative, but vouchsafed no further information.

“Well,” he said, in a tone of authority, “you will not meet him again under any consideration. I forbid it. Remember that.”

She was silent, her head downcast, for in that man’s hands she was as wax. He held her in some thraldom that I saw was as complete as it was terrible. His very presence seemed to cause her to hold her breath, and to tremble.

“Last night,” he continued, “you crept downstairs after you had gone to your room, and you listened at the door of the smoking-room, where I was talking with Miller,” and he laughed as he saw how she started at his accusation. “Yes, you see I know all about it. The faithful Minton, who saw you, told me,” he went on in a hard voice. “You overheard something—something that has very much surprised you. Now there’s an old adage that says listeners never hear any good of themselves. Therefore we must come to a thorough understanding as soon as we can get a quiet half-hour alone together.”

“I think it is perfectly unnecessary,” she said, with some attempt at defiance.

“There, I beg to differ,” he answered. “You have learnt a secret, and I must have some adequate guarantee that that secret is kept—that no single word of it is breathed to a living soul. You understand, Ella,” he added, in a low, fierce half-whisper, lowering his dark clean-shaven face to hers. “You understand! My life depends upon it!”

Chapter Twenty Two.

At Dawn.

The dark-haired woman who had accompanied Ella in the motor-car came forth and joined the pair, preventing any further confidences, and a few minutes later the dinner-gong sounded, and all three went in to join Mr Murray and his companion.

The windows of the dining-room were closed almost immediately, therefore I neither saw nor heard anything more of that strange household.

My one desire was to see Ella alone, but how could I give her news of my presence?

I turned on my heel and strolled slowly back down the dark road in the direction of the village. The first suggestion that crossed my mind was to send her a telegram making an appointment for the following morning, but on reflection I saw that if they had fled in secret, as they seemed to have done, then the arrival of a telegram would arouse Mr Gordon-Wright’s suspicions. Indeed he might actually open it.

I was dealing with a queer fish, a man who was a past-master in alertness and ingenious conspiracy. As Minton, at the Manor, was in the confidence of Miller, so that round-shouldered old fellow was, no doubt, Gordon-Wright’s trustworthy sentinel.

A dozen different modes of conveying a note to her suggested themselves, but the one I adopted was, perhaps, the simplest of them all. I returned to the inn, scribbled upon a small piece of paper a few lines to my well-beloved asking her to meet me at a spot I indicated at six o’clock next morning, and then I called Gibbs, took him into my confidence, and gave him instructions to take the pair of lady’s gloves with fur gauntlets that I had found in one of the pockets of the car, go boldly to the house, ask to see “the young lady who had just arrived by motor-car,” and tell her a fictitious story how he had found the gloves where they had stopped at Plymouth, and as he was passing through Upper Wooton on the way to Launceston he thought he would like to restore them to her.

“She’ll, of course, at once deny that they are hers,” I said. “But in handing them to her you must contrive to slip this little bit of folded paper into her hand—so,” and I gave him a lesson in pressing the small note, folded until it was only the size of a sixpence, into her palm.

He quickly entered into the spirit of the adventure, and three-quarters of an hour later re-entered the low-ceilinged little sitting-room announcing triumphantly that he had been successful.

“At first, sir, their man said I could not see the lady, as she was at dinner, but on pressing him that I wished to see her particularly, he went an’ told her,” he explained. “My request seemed to create quite a hubbub among ’em, for as I stood in the ’all, I heard the conversation suddenly break off, and a chap with a clean-shaven face come to the door an’ had a good straight look at me. Seein’, however, that I was only a chauffeur, he went back, and a minute later the young lady herself appeared alone. I told ’er the story, slipped the bit o’ paper into her hand, and gave her the gloves. The instant she felt the paper in her palm she started and looked at me, surprised like. Then, carryin’ the gloves into the drawing-room, as if to examine them, she glanced at what you’d written, and when she returned a few seconds afterwards, she whispered: ‘Tell the gentleman all right’. Then, sayin’ aloud that the gloves wasn’t hers, she thanked me, an’ dismissed me.”

I congratulated him on his success. So far, so good. I had to wait in patience until six o’clock on the following morning.

That night I slept but little, but when daylight came a certain hope and gladness came with it. At half-past five I went out, and strolled along to the cross-roads I had noticed between the “Glen” and the village. The roads traversing the highway were merely green lanes leading to adjoining fields, and with high hedges on either side were admirably adapted for a secret meeting.

Not without fear of being noticed by some yokel on his way to work, I idled there until the clock from the old ivy-clad church tower below struck the hour. For the first ten minutes I saw no sign of her, and every moment increased my peril of being noticed and my presence commented upon. The villagers were certainly not used to seeing a gentleman wait at the cross-roads at six o’clock in the morning.

Presently, however, my heart leaped with sudden joy, for I saw her in a fresh pale blue cotton dress hurrying towards me, and in order not to be seen meeting her in the main road I withdrew into the lane.

Five minutes later we were standing side by side, in a spot where we could not be observed, she panting and breathless, and I full of eager questions as to the reason of her flight.

“So you actually followed me all the way here, Godfrey!” she exclaimed anxiously, turning those dear eyes upon me, those eyes the expression of which was always as wondering and innocent as a child’s.

“Because I am determined that you shall not again escape me, Ella,” was my answer, grasping her hand and raising it with reverence to my lips.

Are we ever truly read, I wonder, save by the one that loves us best? Love is blind, the phrase runs; yet, I would rather say Love sees as God sees, and with infinite wisdom has infinite pardon.

What was it I felt? I hardly know. I acted without knowing—only stung into a bitter, burning, all-corroding jealousy that drove me like a whip of scorpions.

“You should never have done this,” she answered calmly, though her voice trembled just a little. “Have I not already told you that—that our meeting was unfortunate, and that we must again part?”

“But why?” I demanded fiercely.

“It is imperative,” she faltered. “I can never be yours.”

“But you shall—Ella!” I cried fiercely, “in this past twenty-four hours I have discovered a great deal. Unknown to me there was a man staying with Miller at Studland. The real object of your visit there was to speak with him in secret. You did so and left by motor car, while he travelled here by train. Your father has no idea that he and Miller are friends nor has he any idea of his true identity. He believes him to be Gordon-Wright, yet I know him under the name of Lieutenant Harold Shacklock.”

“You—you know him?” she gasped.

“Yes. After you left the Manor I called, and Lucie introduced me—as though I needed any introduction to him,” I laughed bitterly.

“Then where have you met him before?” she asked, deeply anxious.

“Abroad. I know who and what he is, Ella,” I said determinedly. “And you shall never be his wife.”

“But I must,” she declared. “It is all arranged. I cannot break my engagement. I dare not.”

“Then I shall simply go to the police and tell them what I know. I will never allow you to wreck your happiness because this fellow holds some mysterious power over you. You are mine, Ella—remember—mine!”

“I know! I know!” she gasped, her face pale, her eyes terrified. “But you must not say a word. I beg you, if you really love me, not to say a word.”

“Why not?”

“Because he would revenge himself upon me. I know certain of his secrets—secrets that I discovered by the merest chance. Any information given to the police he would suspect of coming from me. Therefore, don’t you see that any such attempt to free me will only bring upon me disaster—even death!”

“You fear he may take your life!” I gasped. “Ah! I see! He might even kill you, in order to close your lips!”

And I recollected the fellow’s ominous words I had overheard on the previous night, when he had told her that upon her secrecy his very life depended.

He was as ingenious and unscrupulous a criminal as there was in the whole length and breadth of the kingdom.

I saw in what deadly peril was my sweet well-beloved. She was in fear of him. Perhaps he, on his part, held some secret of hers. From her attitude I suspected this. If so, then any word of mine to the police would bring to her only ruin and disgrace!

Chapter Twenty Three.

Children of Circumstance.

Was any man more pitiful, more foolish, more pathetically lonely, more grotesquely fooled by Fate than I?

Was all the world a lie?

Upon the face of my love was a trouble that for once clouded its wondrous beauty. I tried to touch her hair, but she avoided me by a gesture that made me shrink a little.

The years, the tranquil sorrow of my late life dropped from me; I became again only the fierce, fearless, thoughtless lover; the man who had walked with her and adored her beside that summer sea so long ago.

A madness of determination came to me. At all hazards she should be mine. Shacklock was a liar and a schemer, a thief and an adventurer. I would bear witness against him, even at risk of the vendetta which would inevitably fall upon me.

She saw my changed face, and for the first time clung to me.

“Godfrey!” she whispered hoarsely, “have pity upon me, and remain silent. Any word from you must reflect upon myself.”

“I will not allow you to make this self-sacrifice,” I cried fiercely. “Remember Blumenthal.”

“It was for my father’s sake,” she replied. “To save him.”

“And now?”

She did not answer for several moments. Then in a low voice broken by emotion she said:—

“To save myself.”

“But it is madness!” I cried. “In what manner can you be in the power of such a man? You surely know what he is?”

“Alas! I do—too well. If he had one grain of sympathy or feeling he would surely release me.”

“And your father approves of this shameful engagement?”

“He does, because he is ignorant of the truth.”

“Then I will tell him,” I said. “You shall never fall into that man’s hands. I love you, Ella—I love you with all the strength of my being—with all my soul. If you are beneath the thrall of this adventurer, it is my duty to extricate you.”

“Ah! you can’t—you can’t,” she cried. “If you only could, how gladly would I welcome freedom—freedom to love you, Godfrey!” and she clung to me tremblingly. “But it is all a vague dream of the unattainable,” she went on. “My whole life is on fire with shame, and my whole soul is sick with falsehood. Between your life and mine, Godfrey, there is a deep gulf fixed. I lied to you long ago—lied to save my dear father from ruin, and you have forgiven. And now—Oh! God! I shudder as I think—my life will be alone, all alone always.”

I held her trembling hand in silence, and saw the tears streaming down her white cheeks. I could utter no word. What she had said thrust home to me the bitter truth that she must bow to that man’s will, even though I stood firm and valiant as her champion. My defiance would only mean her ruin.

I had met my love again only to lose her in that unfathomable sea of plot and mystery.

All the dark past, those years of yearning and black bitterness, came back to me. I had thought her dead, and lived with her sweet tender remembrance ever with me. Yet in future I should know that she lived, the wife of an adventurer, suffering a good woman’s martyrdom.

My heart grew sick with dread and longing. Again I would mourn the dead indeed; dead days, dead love. It pressed upon my life like lead. What beauty now would the daybreak smile on me? What fragrance would the hillside bear for me as I roamed again the face of Europe?

I should see the sun for ever through my unshed tears. Around me on the summer earth of Italy or the wintry gloom of the Russian steppe there would be for ever silence. My love had passed beyond me.

Unconsciously we moved forward, I still holding her hand and looking into the tearful eyes of her whom I had believed dead. Was it not the perversity of life that snatched her again from me, even though we had met to find that we still loved one another? Yes, it was decreed that I should ever be a cosmopolitan, a wanderer, a mere wayfarer on the great highways of Europe, always filled with longing regrets of the might-have-been.

I remembered too well those gay Continental cities wherein I had spent the most recent years of my weary life; cities where feasts and flowers reign, where the golden louis jingle upon the green cloth, where the passionate dark faces of the women glow, where voices pour forth torrents of joyous words, where holiday dresses gleam gaily against the shadows; cities of frolic and brilliancy, of laughter and music, where vice runs riot hand in hand with wealth, and where God is, alas! forgotten. Ah! how nauseous was it all to me. I had lived that life, I had rubbed shoulders with those reckless multitudes, I had laughed amid that sorry masquerade, yet I had shut my eyes to shut out from me the frolic and brilliancy around, and stumbled on, sad, thoughtful, and yet purposeless.

The gladness made me colder and wearier as I went. The light and laughter would have driven me homeward in desolation, had I a home to shelter me.

But, alas! I was only a wanderer—and alone.

“Tell me, darling,” I whispered to my love, my heart bursting, “is there absolutely no hope? Can you never free yourself from this man?”

“Never,” was her despairing response.

And in that one single word was my future written upon my heart.

I spoke to her again. What I uttered I hardly knew. A flood of fierce, passionate words arose to my lips, and then bending I kissed her—kissed her with that same fierce passion of long ago, when we were both younger, and when we had wandered hand in hand beside the lapping waves at sunset.

She did not draw back, but, on the contrary, she kissed me fondly in return. Her thin white hand stroked my brow tenderly, as though she touched a child.

No words left her lips, but in her soft dear eyes I saw the truth—that truth that held me to her with a band that was indivisible, a bond that, though our lives lay apart, would still exist as strong as it had ever been.

“Ella,” I whispered at last, holding her slight, trembling form in my embrace, and kissing her again upon the lips, “will you not tell me the reason you dare not allow me to denounce this fellow? Is it not just that I should know?”

She shook her head sadly, and, sighing deeply, answered:—

“I cannot tell you.”

“You mean that you refuse?”

“I refuse because I am not permitted, and further, I—”

“You what?”

“I should be revealing to you his secret.”

“And what of that?”

“If you knew everything, you would certainly go to the police and tell them the truth. They would arrest him, and I—I should die.”

“Die? What do you mean?” I asked quickly.

“I could not live to face the exposure and the shame. He would seek to revenge himself by making counter-charges against me—a terrible allegation—but—but before he could do so they would find me dead.”

“And I?”

“Ah! you, dear one! Yes, I know all that you must suffer. Your heart is torn like my own. You love just as fondly as I do, and you have mourned just as bitterly. To you, the parting is as hard as to myself. My life had been one of darkness and despair ever since that night in London when I was forced to lie to you. I wrecked your happiness because circumstances conspired against us—because it was my duty as a daughter to save my father from ruin and penury. Have you really in your heart forgiven me, Godfrey?”

“Yes, my darling. How can I blame you for what was, after all, the noblest sacrifice a woman could make?”

“Then let me go,” she urged, speaking in a low, distinct voice, pale almost to the lips. “We must part—therefore perhaps the sooner the better, and the sooner my life is ended the more swiftly will peace and happiness come to me. For me the grave holds no terrors. Only because I leave you alone shall I regret,” she sobbed.

“And yet I must in future be alone,” I said, swallowing the lump that arose in my throat. “No, Ella!” I cried, “I cannot bear it. I cannot again live without your presence.”

“Alas! you must,” was her hoarse reply. “You must—you must.”

Wandering full of grief and bitter thoughts, vivid and yet confused, the hours sped by uncounted.

To the cosmopolitan, like I had grown to be, green plains have a certain likeness, whether in Belgium, Germany or Britain. A row of poplars quivering in the sunshine looks much alike in Normandy or in Northamptonshire. A deep forest all aglow with red and gold in autumn tints is the same thing, after all, in Tuscany, as in Yorkshire.

But England, our own dear old England, has also a physiognomy that is all her own; that is like nothing else in all the world; pastures intensely green, high hawthorn hedges and muddy lanes, which to some minds is sad and strange and desolate and painful, and which to others is beautiful, but which, be it what else it may, is always wholly and solely English, can never be met with elsewhere, and has a smile of peace and prosperity upon it, and a sigh in it that make other lands beside it seem as though they were soulless and were dumb.

We had unconsciously taken a path that, skirting a wood, ran up over a low hill southward. To our left lay the beautiful Cornish country in the sweet misty grey of the morning light. The sun was shining and the tremulous wood smoke curled up in the rosy air from a cottage chimney.

Was that to be our last walk together, I wondered? I sighed when I recollected how utterly we were the children of circumstance.

Beside her I walked with a swelling heart. I consumed my soul in muteness and bitterness, my eyes set before me to the grey hills behind which the sun had risen.

Chapter Twenty Four.

“I am not Fit!”

Of a sudden, she turned her head and glanced full in my eyes. Her thoughts were, like mine, of the past—of those glad and gracious days.

I stood still for a moment, and catching her hands kissed them; my own were burning.

We went on by the curving course outside the wood quite silent, for the gloom of the future had settled upon us.

The past! Those days when my Ella was altogether mine! I loved to linger on those blissful days, for they were lighted with the sweetest sunlight of my life. Never since, for me, had flowers blossomed, and fruits ripened, and waters murmured, and grasshoppers sung, and waves beat joyous music as in the spring and summer of that wondrous time.

To rise when all the world was flushed with the soft pink of the earliest dawn, and to go hand in hand with her through the breast-high corn with scarlet poppies clasping the gliding feet; to see the purple wraith of rain haunting the silvery fairness of the hills; to watch the shadows chase the sun rays over the wide-open mysterious sea; to feel the living light of the cloudless day beat us with a million pulses amid the hum of life all around; to go out into the lustre of the summer’s night; to breathe the air soft as the first kisses of our own new-found love, and rich as wine with the strong odours of a world of flowers. These had in those never-to-be-forgotten days been her joys and mine, joys at once of the senses and the soul.

I loved her so—God knows! and yet almost I hated her. She had, on that night in Bayswater, deceived me! She had deceived me!

This was the iron in my soul. It is an error so common. Women lie to men—and men to women for the matter of that—out of mistaken tenderness or ill-judged compassion, or that curious fear of recrimination from which the firmest courage is not exempt. A woman deceives a man with untruth, not because she is base, but because she fears to hurt him with the truth; fears his reproaches; fears a painful scene, and even when he is quite worthless she is reluctant to wound his weakness. It is an error so common in this everyday life of ours: an error that is fatal always.

Had she been quite frank with me on that night when we had parted we might not have found ourselves fettered as we now were—she held to a man who was clearly an adventurer and a blackguard to boot.

Yet how could I reproach her for what was a great and complete self-sacrifice. No. She had done what was, perhaps, strictly her duty, even though both our lives had been wrecked in consequence.

“My love!” I murmured passionately, as with a cry I caught her in my arms, and held her close to me, as a man will hold some dear dead thing. And was she not, alas! now dead to me?

Our lips met again, but she was still silent. How many moments went I do not know; as there are years in which a man does not live a moment, so there are moments in which one lives a lifetime.

Her soft blue eyes closed beneath my kisses, my sense grew faint, the world became dark, all light and life shut out from me—all dark. But it was the sweet warm darkness, as though of the balmy night in June; and even then I know I prayed, prayed to Him that she might still be mine.

The trance of passion passed. How long it lasted I cannot tell.

After a while, the cloud that had enveloped my senses seemed suddenly to lift; the sweet unconsciousness died away. I lifted my head and strained myself backward, still holding her, and yet I shivered as I stood.

I remembered.

She, with a quick vague fear awakening in her eyes, held herself from me.

“Why look at me like that?” she cried. “I—I cannot bear it. Let us part now—at once. I must return, or my absence will be known and I shall be questioned.”

I do not know what I said in answer. All madness of reproach that ever man’s tongue could frame left my lips in those blind cruel moments. All excuse for her; all goodness in her I forgot! Ah! God forgive me, I forgot! She had deceived me; that was all I knew, or cared to know.

In that mad moment all the pride in me, fanned by the wind of jealousy, flamed afresh, and burned up love. In that sudden passion of love and hate my brain had gone.

Yet she stood motionless, pale as death, and trembling, her eyes filled with the light of unshed tears.

I do not know what she said in response to my cruel bitter reproaches.

All I know is that I next became suddenly filled with shame. I knelt then before her, asking forgiveness, kissing her hands, her dress, her feet, pouring out to her in all the eager impetuousness of my nature the rapture, the woe, the sorrow, the shame and the remorse that turn by turn had taken possession of my heart.

“I love you, Ella!” I cried. “I love you and as I love am I jealous. Mine is no soulless vagary or mindless folly. You are mine—mine though you may be bound to this blackguard whose victim you have fallen. I am jealous of you, jealous of the wind that touches you, of the sun that shines upon you, of the air you breathe, of the earth you tread, for they are with you while I am not.”

Her head was bowed. She shut her ears to the pleading of my heart. She wrenched her hands from me, crying:—

“No, no, Godfrey! Enough—enough! Spare me this!”

And she struggled from my arms.

“My darling!” I cried, “I know! I know! Yet you cannot realise all that I suffer now that we are to part again and for ever. I hate that man. Ah! light of my eyes, when I think that you are to be his I—I would rather a thousand times see you lying cold and dead at my feet, for I would then know that at least you would be spared unhappiness.”

It seemed that she dared not trust herself to look on me. She flung back her head and eluded my embrace.

“My love!” I cried, “all life in me is yearning for your life; for the softness of silent kisses; for the warmth of clasped hands; for the gladness of summer hours beside the sea. Do you remember them? Do you remember the passion and peace of our mutual love that smiled at the sun, and knew that heaven held no fairer joys than those which were its own, at the mere magic of a single touch?”

“Yes, dear,” she sighed, “I remember—I remember everything. And you have a right to reproach me as you will,” she added very gently.

She was still unyielding; her burning eyes were now tearless, and she stood motionless.

“But you have forgiven me, my love?” I cried humbly. “I was mad to have uttered those words.”

“I have forgiven, Godfrey,” she answered. A heavy sigh ran through the words and made them barely audible.

“And you still love me?”

All the glow and eagerness and fervour or passion had died off her face; it grew cold and colourless and still, with the impenetrable stillness of a desperate woman’s face that masks all pain.

“Do you doubt I loved you—I?”

That reproach cut me to the quick. I was passionate with man’s passion; I was cruel with children’s cruelty.

My face, I felt, flushed crimson, then grew pale again. I shrank a little, as though she had struck me a blow, a blow that I could not return.

“Then—then why should we part?” I asked, as all my love for her welled up in my faint heart. “Why should we not defy this man and let him do his worst? At least we should be united in one sweet, sacred and perfect faith—our love.”

For a few moments she made no reply, but looked at me very long—very wistfully, with no passion in those dear eyes, only a despair that was so great that it chilled me into speechless terror.

“No, no,” she cried at last, covering her face with her white hands, as though in shame, and bursting into a flood of tears. “You do not know all—I pray that you, the man I love so fondly, may never know! If you knew you would hate me and curse my memory. Therefore take back those words, and forget me—yes, forget—for I am not fit to be your wife!”

Chapter Twenty Five.

By the Tyrrhenian Waters.

Ella was all mine—all mine! Mine all the glad fearless freedom of her life; mine all the sweet kisses, the rapturous tenderness, the priceless passion of her love; mine all! And I had lost them.

The grave had given her back for those brief hours, but she was, alas! dead to me.

I stood there as a man in a dream.

I, athirst for the sound of her sweet voice as dying men in deserts for the fountains of lost lands.

But all was silence, save the lark trilling his song high above me in the morning air.

I turned upon my heel, and went forward a changed man.

At the inn I made further inquiries regarding the tenant of the “Glen.”

The stout yellow-haired maid-of-all-work who brought me in my breakfast was a native of the village and inclined to be talkative. From her I learned that Mr Gordon-Wright had had the place about four years. He spent only about three months or so each summer there, going abroad each year for the winter. To the poor he was always very good; he was chairman of the Flower Show Committee, chairman of the Parish Council, and one of the school managers as well as a church-warden.

I smiled within myself at what the girl told me. He was evidently a popular man in Upper Wooton.

He had friends to stay with him sometimes, mostly men. Once or twice he had had foreign gentlemen among his visitors—gentlemen who had been in the post-office and could not speak English.

“My sister was ’ousemaid there till last Michaelmas,” she added. “So I’ve often been up to the ‘Glen’. When old Mrs Auker had it she used to ’ave us girls of the Friendly Society there to tea on the lawn.”

“I think that a friend of mine comes to visit Mr Gordon-Wright sometimes. His name is Miller. Do you remember him?”

“Mr Miller—a tall middle-aged gentleman. Of course, sir. ’E was here in the spring. I remember the name because ’e and Mr Wright gave a treat to the school children.”

“Was a lady with him—a young lady?”

“Yes, sir. His daughter, Miss Lucie.”

The girl knew little else, except, as she declared, Mr Gordon-Wright was a rich man and “a thorough gentleman.”

An hour later, while I was out in the yard of the inn watching Gibbs going round the car, we suddenly heard the whirr of an approaching motor, and down the street flashed the blue car which we had pursued so hotly on the previous day. It carried the same occupants, with the addition of one person—Mr Gordon-Wright.

The latter, in peaked cap and motor-coat, was driving, while behind were the two strangers, with Mr Murray and Ella.

The latter caught sight of me as she flashed past. Our eyes met for an instant, and then she was lost to me in a cloud of dust—lost for ever.

“They’re going back again, it seems,” I remarked to Gibbs.

“No, sir. I saw their man this morning. They’re going to Bristol. He’s heard from ’is master that it’s all right. The young gentleman and the lady are his master’s friends, after all—even though they’re such a queer pair,” and then he added: “Did you think of startin’ this morning, sir?”

“Yes. As soon as you are ready.”

“Where to, sir?”

“Back to Swanage.”

We ran across Devon and Dorset at a somewhat lower speed to what we had travelled when overtaking the 40 “Mercédès.” Gibbs had no desire to put in an appearance before any local bench. Indeed nowadays it is useless to make an appearance. So prejudiced are magistrates, and such hard swearing is there on the part of the police, that motorists must pay up cheerfully. There is no justice for the pioneers of locomotion.

We returned by another road, which proved better than that by which we had come, and just before eleven at night I descended from the car at the “Lion,” and after some supper with the fat genial landlord, who took a deep interest in my journey and hardly credited that I had been into Cornwall and back, I went up to the room I had previously occupied.

Tired after the heat and dust of the road I slept well, but was up betimes, and at half-past nine walked out to the Manor House.

A maid-servant came to the door in response to my ring. “Mr Miller and the young lady have gone away, sir,” the girl replied to my inquiry. “They went up to London yesterday.”

“Are they staying in London?” I asked eagerly. “I’m sure I don’t know, sir.”

“Is Miss Miller at home? If so, I’d like to see her.” And I handed her my card.

I was shown into the morning-room, and in a few minutes Miller’s sister appeared.

“I’m so sorry, Mr Leaf,” she said, in her thin, weak voice, “but my brother and his daughter left quite suddenly yesterday. He received a telegram recalling him.”

“Where?”

“To Italy. He left by the mail from Charing Cross last night—direct for Leghorn, I believe.”

“Is he likely to be away long?”

“He won’t be back, I suppose, before the spring.”

“And Miss Lucie has gone with him?”

“Of course. She is always with him.”

It was upon my tongue to ask her brother’s address in Leghorn, but I hesitated, for I recollected that, being an Englishman, he could be easily found.

The receipt of that telegram was suspicious. What new conspiracy was in progress, I wondered? Evidently something had occurred. Either he had been warned that the police were in search of him, and had escaped back to the Continent, or else certain of his plans had been matured earlier than he anticipated.

As I sat there in the old-fashioned room, with its punch-bowls full of sweet-smelling roses, I resolved to travel south to the Mediterranean, see Lucie, and endeavour to find some way in which to rescue my love from her father’s accomplice.

From that Dorsetshire village to the old sun-blanched port of Leghorn is a far cry—thirty-six hours in the express from Calais on the road to Rome—yet that night I was back in Granville Gardens; and hastily packing up my traps, chatting with Sammy the while, I next morning left London for Italy.

I told my friend but little. The circumstances were too complicated and puzzling, and the tragedy of it all was so complete that I preferred to remain silent.

I was going south, upon one of those erratic journeys I so very often took. I might return in a fortnight, or in six months. All depended upon the mood in which I found myself.

Therefore he accepted my explanation, knowing well as a constant traveller and thoroughgoing cosmopolitan himself, and he saw me off from Charing Cross, wishing me bon voyage.

The journey by way of Calais, Paris, Modane and Turin you yourself have done often, so why need I describe it? You have lunched between Calais and Paris, dined at the Gare de Lyon, turned into your narrow sleeping berth between Paris and the frontier, lunched in the wagon-restaurant between Modane and Busseleno, scrambled through your dinner in the big buffet at Genoa, and cursed those stifling tunnels between Genoa and Spezia, where between them you get your first glimpses of the moonlit Mediterranean, and you have alighted at old marble-built Pisa, the quaint dead city that contains one of the wonders of the world—the Leaning Tower.

From Pisa you have gone on to Rome, or to Florence, but I question if you have ever travelled over that ten-mile branch line down to the ancient seaport of the Medici, Leghorn. The English, save the mercantile marine and a stray traveller or two, never go to Livorno, as it is called in Italian, and yet it is in summer the Brighton of Italy, and one of the gayest places in Europe during the bathing season.

It was nearly two o’clock in the morning when I alighted at the “Palace,” that great white hotel on the sea-front, and went to the room allotted to me—one with an inviting balcony overlooking the promenade and the fashionable bathing establishment of Pancaldi.

Livorno was full, the night-porter informed me. It was the height of the season, and there was not another vacant bed in any hotel in the town that night.

I knew the place well, therefore early next morning I went forth, and took a turn across at Pancaldi’s, which is a kind of stone pier built out upon the rocks into the clear sunlit waters. Though so early there were already quite a number of smartly dressed people; the men in clean white linen suits and the women in white muslins, mostly of the Italian aristocracy from Florence, Bologna, Milan and Rome.

It was delightful there, seated in a chair with the waves lapping lazily at one’s feet, and the brown sails of the anchovy and sardine boats showing afar against the dark purple island of Gorgona in the distance. On every hand was the gay chatter of men—for Italians are dreadful chatterboxes—the light laughter of pretty dark-eyed women, or the romping of a few children in the care of their nurses.

I was fatigued after my journey, and as I idled there my eyes were open about me to recognise any friends.

Suddenly, approaching me, I saw a stout elderly lady in white, accompanied by a slim young girl of seventeen, whom I recognised as the Countess Moltedo and her daughter Gemma. I rose instantly, removed my hat, and drawing my heels together in Italian fashion, bowed.

“Ah! my dear Signor Leaf!” cried the Countess in English merrily, for she was American born, and like so many other countesses in Italy had been attracted by a title, and had long ago found her husband to be a worthless fellow who had married her merely in order to replenish his impoverished purse. “Why, this is a surprise! Gemma was speaking of you only the other day, and wondered if you had deserted Italy entirely.”

“No, Countess,” I replied. “Once one really knows Italy, she is one’s mistress—and you can never desert her.”

And I took the young girl’s hand she offered, and bowed over it.

“You are here at your villa at Antigniano, I suppose?” I went on.

“Yes. We’ve been here already two months. It is too hot still to return to Rome. The season has been a most gay one, for the new spa, the Acque della Salute, has, they say, attracted nearly twenty thousand persons more than last year.”

“Leghorn in summer is always charming,” I said, as I drew chairs for them at the edge of the water, and they seated themselves. “And your villa is so very delightful, out there, beyond the noise and turmoil.”

“Yes, we find it very nice. Myself, I prefer the quiet village life of Antigniano to this place. We only come up here at rare intervals, when Gemma gets dull.”

The pretty dark-eyed young girl laughing at me said:—

“Mother likes all the old fogies, Mr Leaf, while I like to see life. Out yonder at Antigniano they are all old frumps, and the men never remain there. They always take the tram and come into Leghorn.”

Like a flash it occurred to me to make an inquiry of them.

“By the way,” I said, “you know all the Americans and English here. Do you happen to know a man named Miller?”

“Miller? No,” was the American woman’s reply.

“Haven’t you mistaken the name? There’s a man named Milner, who has a daughter, a tall, rather smart dark-haired girl.”

“Milner,” I repeated, recognising at once that in Leghorn the final “r” was added. “Yes, perhaps that’s the name. He’s a tall elderly man—a gentleman. His daughter’s name is Lucie.”

“I know her,” exclaimed Gemma quickly. “We’ve met them lots of times. They live in a flat at the other end of the promenade, towards the town.”

“I want to call. Do you know the number?”

“Number nine in the Viale,” replied the Countess promptly, with her slight American accent. “Second floor. Where did you meet them?”

“In England. I returned from London only last night.”

“I don’t think they are here,” she said. “The week we arrived at the villa, nearly two months ago, Lucie called and said that they were going to spend the summer up at Roncegno, in the Trentino, a place that is becoming quite fashionable with the Italians. They left Leghorn, and I haven’t seen them since.”

“I believe they are back,” I said. “Anyhow I will leave a card.”

“Because the handsome Lucie has attracted you, eh?” asked the Countess, laughing mischievously.

“Not at all,” I protested. “I’m a confirmed bachelor, as you’ve known long ago.”

“Ah! men always say so,” she remarked. “Why do you take such an intense interest in Milner and his daughter?”

“Because they were kind to me in England,” I replied briefly.

“Well—he’s a peculiar man,” she said. “They have very few friends, I believe. He’s a gentleman, no doubt, but in very reduced circumstances. My own idea is that when Lucie’s dresses are paid for he has very great difficulty in making both ends meet. He’s a bit of a mystery, they say.”

“You surprise me,” I said. “I had no idea he was as poor as that.”

It was evident that James Harding Miller feigned poverty in Leghorn, in order to conceal his true calling.

“The house is sufficient indication that they are not overburdened by money. In fact, a couple of years ago Lucie used to give English lessons to Baroness Borelli’s two girls. Nowadays, however, Milner himself is away a great deal. I’ve often met him in the Corso in Rome, idling about outside the Aragno, and in Florence, Milan and other places, while Lucie stays at home with their old servant Marietta.”

“Why do you say he’s a peculiar man?”

“Well—I have heard it whispered among the Italians here that he associates with some queer people sometimes. Of course, he’s an Inglese, and quite in ignorance of what they really are. The better-class Italians have nothing to do with him, and as the English colony here is so very small, poor Lucie’s life can’t be a very gay one. Indeed, I’m often sorry for the girl. Except for visiting us sometimes, and going to the houses of two or three of the English business people here, they go nowhere. Milner, when he’s here, spends each morning alone on the Squarci baths, reading the newspaper, and in the evening takes one turn up and down the promenade.”

“Yes,” declared her daughter. “He’s a most lonely, melancholy man.”

“There’s some mystery behind him, I suppose,” remarked the Countess. “We have so many queer English and Americans out here nowadays. Italy is really becoming the dumping-ground for all people who, from some reason or other, find their own country too sultry for them. Take Rome, for instance: why, the place is simply full of people one can’t possibly know, while Florence is proverbial for undesirables.”

“But you don’t think this man Milner is an undesirable, do you? I mean you’ve never heard anything against him?”

“Well, nothing absolutely direct,” was her answer. “Only if I were you I wouldn’t be too friendly with them. It will go very much against you, more especially in Italian society.”

“Italian society, Countess, doesn’t interest me really very much,” I exclaimed. “I know you think me a terrible barbarian, but remember I’m only a wanderer and a Bohemian at that.”

“Ah!” she sighed, “you men are free. It is unfortunately not so with us women, especially with a woman like myself, who, though I love freedom, am compelled to exist in this narrow-minded little world of the Italian aristocracy. I need not tell you how exclusive we all are—you know us too well. Why, when an English royal prince or princess comes to an Italian city hardly any one ever goes out of his way to call. They actually wait for the royalty to make the first call! And if you hear three school-girls of fourteen talking together, you will most certainly hear them discussing the nobiltà, and sneering at their schoolfellows whose parents are without titles. Yes, Mr Leaf,” she sighed, “ours is a strange complex life here, in modern Italy.”

The Countess was, I knew, “hipped” and embittered. Her husband, a good-looking good-for-nothing fellow, who spent his days idling in the Via Tornabuoni, in Florence, and his nights gambling at the Florence club, possessed a large estate with a fine old castle, away in the Cresentino, but every metre of the land was mortgaged, and in order to redeem the place had married Mary Plant, of Boston, Mass., the daughter of a rich coal-owner. Within three years they had been separated, and now only at rare intervals they met, sometimes finding themselves at the same entertainment in one or other of the palaces in Rome or Florence and greeting each other as comparative strangers. Like thousands of other similar cases in Italy, she had bought her title very dearly, and now bitterly regretted that she had ever been attracted by a handsome face and elegant manner, that she had been entrapped by a man who had never entertained one single spark of affection for her, and who had, in his heart, despised her on account of her readiness to sacrifice herself and her money for the sake of becoming a Countess.

We continued to chat, for it was delightful there, with the clear blue waves lapping close to our feet. In the course of conversation she and her daughter told me several other interesting facts concerning the Millers. They had lived in Rome for two successive winter seasons, the Countess said, in a little furnished flat in the Via Grottino, one of those narrow streets that lead off the Corso.

Was it while there, I wondered, that Lucie had become acquainted with the great politician, Nardini—the man who had died refusing to give her her liberty?

I longed to approach the subject, yet there were matters upon which I could not touch while Gemma was present.

So I sat there idling, laughing and chatting, and recalling the last occasion we had met, up in the pine woods of Camaldoli in the previous August, when I was staying at their hotel, where we had many mutual friends.

I had known the Countess fully ten years, when Gemma was but a child in the nursery, and when she was still a very pretty young woman.

Somehow I saw that she was anxious that I should not know the Milners. Why, I could not discern.

“If I were you,” she said, in a low, confidential tone, when she had sent her daughter along to the kiosque for a newspaper, “I shouldn’t call upon that man. I haven’t told Gemma, but I’ve dropped the girl. After she called upon me the last time I sent her a letter hinting that I should prefer that she did not call again.”

“Why?” I asked, much surprised.

“Well, I have a reason,” was her response. “Quite lately I’ve discovered something that requires a good deal of explaining away. To tell you the truth, I believe Milner is sailing under entirely false colours, and besides I have no intention that Gemma should associate with his daughter any further. Take my advice, Godfrey, and don’t go near them.”

“Then what have you heard?”

“I’ve heard a good deal that surprises me,” replied the Countess. “In fact, the whole affair is a very grave scandal, and I, for one, don’t mean to be dragged into it.”

Chapter Twenty Six.

The Home of the Mysterious Englishman.

At half-past five o’clock that same afternoon, heedless of the Countess Moltedo’s mysterious warning, I was standing by Lucie’s side at the long French window that opened upon the balcony. Below, hundreds of visitors, mostly dressed in white, as is the mode of Leghorn, were promenading in the little pine wood that lies between the roadway and the sea, while beyond stretched the broad glassy Mediterranean aglow in the fiery rays of the Tuscan sunset, the mystic islands showing dark purple on the far-off horizon.

It was the hour when all Leghorn was agog after the siesta, that period from two o’clock till five, when all persiennes are closed, the streets are silent and deserted, and the city dazzlingly white lies palpitating beneath the blazing sun that blanches everything—the hour for the evening bath, and the stroll and gossip before dinner.

Perhaps nowhere else in all Europe can be seen such a living panorama of beautiful girls as there, upon the Passeggio at Leghorn on a summer’s evening at six o’clock, those dark-haired, dark-eyed, handsome-featured children of the people walking in twos and threes, with figure and gait perfect, and each with her santuzza, or silken scarf of pale blue, mauve, pink, or black, twisted around her head with the ends thrown carelessly over the shoulders.

As the white veil is part of the costume of the Turkish woman so is the santuzza part of that of the merry, laughing coral-pickers, milliners and work-girls of Leghorn. It enhances their marvellous beauty and is at the same time the badge of their servitude.

Of all the people in the whole of proud old Tuscany assuredly none were so easy-going and vivacious, none so light-hearted and full of poetry as those Livornese people passing to and fro below us. The more I had dwelt among the Tuscan people the more I loved them. There is surely no other people on the face of the earth so entirely lovable, even with their many sad faults, as they; none so gregarious, so neighbourly, so courteous, kindly or poetic, none so content upon the most meagre fare that ever held body and soul together.

Your popolano even in his rags will bring a flower to a woman with the air of a king, and he will resent an insult with a withering scorn to which no regal trappings could lend further dignity. It is the land where Love still reigns just as supreme as it did in the days of La Fiammetta, of Beatrice, of Laura, or of Romeo—the Land of Amore—the sun-kissed land where even in this prosaic century of ours men and women live and die—often by the knife-thrust, be it said—for “amore,” that king who is greater and more powerful even than good Vittorio Emanuele himself.

At Lucie’s side I stood in silence, gazing down upon the gay scene below. In those people’s eyes were always dreams, and in the memories there was always greatness.

A writer has asked with deep truth, who, having known fair Tuscany, can forsake her for lesser love? Who, having once abode with her, can turn their faces from the rising sun and set the darkness of the Pisan mountains betwixt herself and them?

Yes. I had been back again in Tuscany for those few brief hours only, yet the glamour of Italy had again fallen upon me, that same glamour that holds so many of the English-speaking race—irrevocably compelling them to return again and again to those amethystine hills and mystical depths of seven-chorded light—the land that is grey-green with sloes and rich with trailing vines, the land of art and antiquity, of youth and of loveliness.

“And your father went on from Pisa?” I said at last, turning to my neat-waisted little companion. “He did not come home with you?”

“No. He has some urgent business down in Rome, and sent me back here to wait for him.”

“When does he arrive?”

“He does not know. His business is very uncertain always. Sometimes when he goes away he’s absent only three days, and at other times three months. Dear old dad is awfully tiresome. He never writes, and Marietta and I wait and wait, and wonder what’s become of him.”

“Is he staying with friends in Rome?”

“With Dr Gavazzi, a great friend of ours.”

“You left Studland very suddenly,” I said.

“Because of a telegram. We left at once, with hardly an hour to pack up. But how did you know we had gone to Italy?”

“I called after you had left, and your aunt told me. I wanted to speak to you, Miss Miller,” I added, turning to her seriously. “I came here to Leghorn purposely to see you.”

“It’s surely a long way to travel,” she said, turning her soft dark eyes upon mine and regarding me with wonder.

“Yes. But the reason I am here is to consult you regarding something which very closely concerns myself—regarding Ella.”

“Ah! It was strange that she left us so suddenly,” she remarked, “and stranger still the events of that night. I wonder who attacked her? She recognised her assailant, otherwise she would have said something to me. I’ve thought over it several times. The whole thing is an utter enigma. She evidently left us because she feared that her assailant would either call to see her, or perhaps make another attempt upon her.”

“Then she said nothing to you?”

“Absolutely not a word, even though when she came in she was half fainting. I naturally concluded that you and she had had some words, and therefore I made no inquiry.”

“We had no words, Miss Miller,” I said, in a low, serious voice. “Our hearts were too full of tragedy for that.”

“Of tragedy?” she cried. “What do you mean?”

“Ella is already engaged to be married.”

“Engaged?” she cried. “Why, I thought she was to be yours? I was congratulating you both!”

“No,” I answered, my heart sinking. “Though we have come together again after that long blank in both our lives, we are yet held apart by a cruel circumstance. She is already engaged to be married to another man.”

“But she will break it, never fear. Ella loves you—you can’t doubt that.”

“I know. I know that. But it is an engagement she cannot break. She will be that man’s wife in a month.”

“You absolutely amaze me. She told me nothing of this, but on the contrary led me to believe that she was still free, and that you were to be her affianced husband.”

“There is some reason—some secret reason why I cannot be,” I said. “It was to discuss this point with you that I have travelled from London. I must ask you to forgive me, Miss Miller, for troubling you with my private affairs, but you are, you know, Ella’s most intimate and most devoted friend.”

“You are not troubling me in the least,” my companion declared. “We are friends, you and I, and if I can help you, I will with pleasure do so.”

“Then I want to ask you a few questions,” I said eagerly. “First, tell me how long you have known Mr Gordon-Wright?”

“Oh! ever since I was quite a little girl. He used to give me francs and buy me bon-bons long ago in the old days in Paris. Why?”

“Because I had an idea that he might perhaps be a new acquaintance.”

“Oh, dear no. My father and he have been friends for many years. He comes here to stay, sometimes for a couple of months at a time. He has bad health, and his London doctor often orders him abroad.”