“Promise me this.”
“Well, I shall be discreet.”
“Then, I have to tell you that Violet has made an undesirable acquaintance in London, one whom it is of supreme importance, if our married life is to be a success, that she should see not once again. It is a man—No, don’t be unduly alarmed—I don’t for a moment suspect that their intimacy has proceeded far, but it has proceeded too far, and must go no farther. I may tell you that it is my belief that letters, or notes, have passed between them, and, to my knowledge, they have met at least once by appointment in Kensal Green cemetery, for I have actually surprised them there. Now, pray, don’t be distressed. Don’t, now, or I shall regret having told you. Certainly, it is a serious matter, but don’t think it more serious than it is—”
“Violet?” breathed Mrs. Mordaunt, with a long face.
“The facts are as I have stated them,” proceeded Van Hupfeldt, “and when the knowledge of them came to me, I was at some pains to make inquiries into the personality of the man in question. He turns out to be a man named Harcourt.”
“Oh, you mean Mr. Harcourt, the occupier of the flat in Eddystone Mansions? Why, he was here yesterday. Violet herself told me—”
“Here? Yesterday?” Van Hupfeldt turned suddenly greenish. “But why so? What did the man say?”
“Violet did not seem to wish to be explicit,” answered Mrs. Mordaunt; “but I understood from her that he is interested in Gwendoline’s fate.”
“He? By what right does he dare? He is interested in Violet! That is whom the man is interested in, Mrs. Mordaunt, I tell you! And do you know what this man is? I have been at the pains to discover—a scribbler of books, a man of notoriously bad character who has had to fly from America—”
“How awful! But Mr. Dibbin, the agent, had references—”