“I lost her absolutely just when I thought I was sure of her,” he said. “She walked into my life and she walked out of it again, leaving no trace. I haven’t had the ghost of a chance.”
“Perhaps you will meet her again,” I said at last, somewhat lamely. “She may turn up suddenly, just when you least expect her.”
He shook his head.
“I shall never find her,” he said. “She’s gone for ever, I know it. She knew it. Lost! Lost! Lost!”
And the shadowed room echoed the word “Lost!”
I told the whole story to Mildred next day. I dare say I ought not to have done, but I did.
“Poor Mr. Sinclair,” she said softly when I had finished.
“Do you think he’s off his head?” I said. “It sounds perfectly ridiculous, a sort of cracked hallucination.”
“Oh, no. It’s all true,” said Mildred, in the same matter-of-fact tone as if she had said the fire was out. Women are curious creatures. The story evidently did not strike her as at all peculiar.
“What a pity he did not stick to the high road,” she said.