He avoided the invitation of her eyes. He was indeed still in the throes of his bewilderment.
“But Sir John?” he exclaimed. “What made you marry him? What made you leave Paris without a word to any one? What made you and your sister exchange identities?”
“There is one answer to all those questions, Nigel,” she said, with a nervous little shudder. “It is a hateful story. Come close to me, and let me hold your hand, dear. I am a little afraid.”
There was a strange look in her face, the look of a frightened child. Ennison seemed to feel already the shadow of tragedy approaching. He stood by her side, and he suffered her hands to rest in his.
“You remember the man in Paris who used to follow me about—Meysey Hill they called him?”
He nodded.
“Miserable bounder,” he murmured. “Turned out to be an impostor, too.”
“He imposed on me,” Annabel continued. “I believed that he was the great multi-millionaire. He worried me to marry him. I let him take me to the English Embassy, and we went through some sort of a ceremony. I thought it would be magnificent to have a great house in Paris, and more money than any other woman. Afterwards we started for déjeuner in a motor. On the way he confessed. He was not Meysey Hill, but an Englishman of business, and he had only a small income. Every one took him for the millionaire, and he had lost his head about me. I—well, I lost my temper. I struck him across the face, twisted the steering wheel of the motor, sprang out myself, and left him for dead on the road with the motor on top of him. This is the first act.”
“Served the beast right,” Ennison declared. “I think I can tell you something which may be very good news for you presently. But go on.”
“Act two,” she continued. “Enter Sir John, very honest, very much in love with me. I thought that Hill was dead, but I was frightened, and I wanted to get away from Paris. Sir John heard gossip about us—about Anna the recluse, a paragon of virtue, and Annabel alias ‘Alcide’ a dancer at the cafés chantants, and concerning whom there were many stories which were false, and a few—which were true. I—well, I borrowed Anna’s name. I made her my unwilling confederate. Sir John followed me to London and married me. To this day he and every one else thinks that he married Anna.