"Did Mrs. Clear say you were her husband, Michael?"
"Yes. She called me Michael Clear, and brought me to stay with the doctor. But I am not Michael Clear!"
CHAPTER XXVI
THE OTHER MAN'S WIFE
As soon as Lucian arrived back in his rooms he sat down at his desk and wrote a long letter to Diana, giving a full account of his extraordinary discovery of her father in Jorce's asylum, and advising her to come up at once to London.
When he posted this—which he did the same night—he sighed to think it was not a love letter. He could have covered reams of paper with words of passion and adoration; he could have poured out his whole soul at the feet of his divinity, telling her of his love, his aspirations, his hopes and fears. No doubt, from a common-sense view, the letter would have been silly enough, but it would have relieved his mind and completed his happiness of knowing that he loved and was beloved.
But in place of writing thus, he was compelled by his promise to Diana to pen a description of his late discovery, and interesting as the case was now growing, he found it irksome to detail the incident of the afternoon. He wished to be a lover, not a detective.
So absent-minded and distraught was Lucian, that Miss Greeb, who had long suspected something was wrong with him, spoke that very evening about himself. She declared that Lucian was working too hard, that he needed another rest, although he had just returned from the country, and recommended a sleeping draught. Finally she produced a letter which had just arrived, and as it was in a female hand, Miss Greeb watched its effect on her admired lodger with the keen eyes of a jealous woman. When she saw him flush and seize it eagerly, casting, meanwhile, an impatient look on her to leave the room, she knew the truth at once, and retired hurriedly to the kitchen, where she shed floods of tears.