Mensmore found it hard to utter the words. In his heart Bruce pitied him, though he raged at this lamentable issue of the only bright passage in the whole story of death and intrigue.
“And what did Miss Browne say?”
“Oh, she just pooh-poohed the affair, and pretended to laugh at me, though she was crying all the time.”
“A nice kettle of fish you have made of it,” growled the barrister. “You help your sister in her folly of silence and then proceed to give effect to it by ruining your own happiness and that of your affianced wife. Have you seen Miss Browne since?”
“No.”
His visitor was so utterly disconsolate that Bruce was at a loss to know how to deal with him. He felt that if Mensmore would but speak regarding Mrs. Hillmer’s strange delusion, and the cause of it, all these difficulties and disasters would disappear. He resolved to try a direct attack.
“Have you ever heard of a Colonel Montgomery?” he said suddenly, bending his searching gaze on the other’s downcast face.
The effect was electrical. Mensmore was so taken back that he was spellbound. He looked at Claude, the picture of astonishment, before he stammered:
“I—you—who told you about him?”
“He was your sister’s friend, adviser, and confidant,” was the stern reply. “He it is who, in some mysterious way, is bound up with Lady Dyke’s disappearance.”