Dear Lotty,--This comes to inform you that on Tuesday evening, between nine and ten o'clock, I see Mr. R. D. and Miss G. a-walking out together. They passed close under a lamp by which, I was standing, so that I could not be mistaken about either one or the other. Still, to make quite sure, I thought I would follow them. I did so, and I see them part at Mrs. Malcolm's door. He kissed her, and then she rang the bell. Then he strolled back to his lodgings in Peelgate, I strolling after him; and that is all I know.
"Your loving brother,
"Edgar Wallis."
(It was at midnight on Tuesday that Dyson had kissed Denia in the garden.)
Ten minutes later Denia received a message to the effect that Mr. Melray would feel obliged if she would step downstairs to his office. "Something about money matters, I suppose," she said wearily to herself. She went at once, presaging nothing, fearing nothing. She was as one half dazed, who, having been struck down from behind, as yet can hardly realise what has happened to him. Although she was unaware of it, the note which had been to her as a message of doom was still clutched tightly between her fingers as she entered the room. Robert Melray was at once struck by the pallor of her face, and by a certain hard, cold glitter in her eyes such as he had never noticed in them before.
"Sit down, Dania; I have something of particular moment to say to you," he began, in no unkindly tones, indicating a chair at the table opposite his own. Then, opening the door of the outer office, he said: "Mr. Cray, will you be good enough to see that I am not disturbed by anybody till I ring." Then he turned the key of the door which opened into the side lane, after which he sat down facing Denia. It was evident to that clear-sighted young woman, even through her own perturbation, that he was extremely nervous and ill at ease.
With his elbows resting on the table and his fingers interlocked, he gazed at her for a few seconds with a sort of sad, wistful earnestness. Then clearing his voice he said: "I am a poor hand at a preface, or at leading up by degrees to anything I may have to say. In short, I cannot beat about the bush." For a moment he paused, and again he cleared his voice. "Denia, it has come to my knowledge that you and Richard Dyson were together in the garden at midnight on Tuesday. It was your hand that admitted him by way of the side-door."
He ceased, as though to afford her time to recover herself. The pallor of her face gave way to a great wave of colour which surged quickly up from her bosom to her cheeks and thence to the roots of her hair. For a few moments it remained thus, at high-water mark as it were, and then began to subside.
"His arm was round you," continued Robert, "he kissed you and you did not repulse him Only one inference can be drawn--that he and you are in love with each other."
Denia's bosom rose with the slow indrawing of her breath. It was one of those supreme moments when, brought to bay, one's whole future course in life may depend on the next few sentences that fall from one's lips.