"I will."
He put his arms round her. "Mother!" he exclaimed, "I love you the better for my loving Laura. Do you realise that?"
"I will believe it if you tell me so, Oliver."
He strode off, hastened up the staircase without looking round again, and she, waiting below, covered her face with her hands. A terrible sense of loneliness swept over and engulfed her; for the first time there was added a pang of regret that she had not joined her life to that of the affectionate hedonist who had been her true, devoted friend for so long.
CHAPTER XIX
AND so, in this at once amazing and simple way was solved the mystery of Godfrey Pavely's disappearance.
Inquiries made by the police soon elicited the fact that the Portuguese financier had told the truth as regarded his business in England, for a considerable number of persons voluntarily came forward to confirm the account the man had given of himself in his strange letter.
During his sojourn at the Mayfair Hotel, the now mysterious Fernando Apra had impressed those who came in contact with him pleasantly rather than otherwise. It was also remembered there that one morning, about three weeks ago, he had come in looking agitated and distressed, and that he had confided to the manager of the hotel that an accident of a very extraordinary nature had occurred to him. But there his confidences had stopped—he had not said what it was that had happened to him. A day or two later, he had gone away, explaining that his business in England was concluded.
Laura stayed up in town till the inquest, and so, rather to Laura's surprise, did Katty Winslow.