But even this thought did not appear to have a consoling effect upon Southerley, who shook him off impatiently and went out again without a word.
“Fool!” cried Repton, contemptuously, “to care so much for a woman who didn’t care two pins about him.”
But Bayre, who remembered Miss Merriman’s tears, was less harsh in his judgment.
“I have an idea,” said he, slowly, “that she didn’t dare to care!”
But he would not proffer any solution of this enigmatic remark.
And before the day was out he had something to divert his attention in the shape of a letter from Miss Eden.
A surprising letter it was, and tantalising, too, for it was evidently written in a sort of breathless way, while the writer was at a white heat of emotion, and it told him just enough to make him want to know more.
It was as follows:—
“Dear Mr Bayre,—I got your letter. I have said nothing about it. I think you had better keep the papers yourself for a little while—those, I mean, that you found in the iron box. I will write to you again in a day or two, perhaps. I am afraid this letter is disjointed, but I have had a sort of shock, and I have not got over it yet. Do not be alarmed: we are all well here, or as well as you could expect, remembering the state in which you left us all. The Vazons have not come back and we have heard nothing more of them. We think they must be still in the islands, but they are not at Creux. Nini has come to stay here; she is a trustworthy girl, and I am very glad to have her, for I should not like to be here quite alone.
“Now I am going to tell you something which will surprise you. I have found out who the woman is shut up here. I cannot tell you more now, except this—that she is not here against her will.—Yours sincerely,
“Olwen Eden.”
Bayre was on thorns to know more, and he could not understand why, having told him so much, she could not have trusted him with the whole of the secret. Was it something she did not like to trust to paper? Was it his young wife whom old Mr Bayre was keeping concealed at the château? And if so, was she in her right mind?