We were walking quietly towards my cottage as we talked, and the impulse came upon me to confide to him the presentiment which Evie had in regard to the capture of the Pirate relieving her from her burden of fear. That necessitated my explaining as well as I could the curious influence which Mannering exercised over her. Forrest listened attentively.
"Curious," he muttered, when I had finished. "It is very curious that the fellow should have produced such an impression on Miss Maitland. By the way, he was not at the Colonel's to-night."
"No," I replied.
"I wonder——" he began. He never finished the sentence, nor did he speak again until he reached my door. There he paused, and said lightly, "I think I should like to discover whether the disappointed lover is at home to-night. Are you prepared for a little amateur burglary, Sutgrove?"
"Ready for anything," I assured him.
"It seems a little absurd to suspect Mannering," he remarked meditatively. "Yet there are times when a woman's intuition is a better guide than a man's ratiocination."
"You didn't get any clue in Amsterdam, then?" I asked tentatively, for I was curious to hear the results of his journey.
"No, no. Nothing at all in Holland."
"If Mannering were the Pirate, and had tried to dispose of his plunder there, you would in all probability have caught him; but he would scarcely have chosen to go abroad at the same time as yourself," I remarked.
Forrest emitted a long, low whistle. "By Jove!" he said. "Then it was indeed he whom I saw in Vienna."