“And you knew who she was when you saw her just now?” Le Neve asked, greatly puzzled.
“Yes and no. Not exactly. I knew she was the person I’d seen and talked with, but I’d never heard her name, nor connected her in any way with Michael Trevennack. If I had, things would be different. It’s a terrible Nemesis. I’ll tell you how it happened. I may as well tell all. But the worst point of the whole to me in this crushing blow is to learn that that girl is Michael Trevennack’s daughter.”
“Where and when did you meet her then?” Le Neve asked, growing curious.
“Quite casually, once only, some time since, in a railway carnage. It must be two years ago now, and I was going from Bath to Bournemouth. She traveled with me in the same compartment as far as Temple Combe, and I talked all the way with her; I can remember every word of it.... Eustace, it’s foolish of me to acknowledge it, perhaps, but in those two short hours I fell madly in love with her. Her face has lived with me ever since; I’ve longed to meet her, But I was stupidly afraid to ask her name before she got out of the train; and I had no clue at all to her home or her relations. Yet, a thousand times since I’ve said to myself, ‘If ever I marry I’ll marry that girl who went in the carriage from Bath to Temple Combe with me.’ I’ve cherished her memory from that day to this. You mayn’t believe, I dare say, in love at first sight; but this I can swear to you was a genuine case of it.”
“I can believe in it very well,” Le Neve answered, most truthfully, “now I’ve seen Miss Trevennack.”
Tyrrel looked at him, and smiled sadly. “Well, when I saw her again this morning,” he went on, after a short pause, “my heart came up into my mouth. I said to myself, with a bound, ‘It’s she! It’s she! At last I’ve found her.’ And it dashed my best hopes to the ground at once to see she didn’t even remember having met me.”
Le Neve looked at him shyly. “Walter,” he said, after a short struggle, “I’m not surprised you fell in love with her. And shall I tell you why? I fell in love with her myself, too, the moment I saw her.”
Tyrrel turned to him without one word of reproach. “Well, we’re no rivals now,” he answered, generously. “Even if she would have me—even if she loved me well—how could I ask her to take—her brother’s murderer?”
Le Neve drew a long breath. He hadn’t thought of that before. But had it been other wise, he couldn’t help feeling that the master of Penmorgan would have been a formidable rival for a penniless engineer just home from South America.
For already Eustace Le Neve was dimly aware, in his own sanguine mind, that he meant to woo and win that beautiful Cleer Trevennack.