At ten o'clock next morning a hired brougham drove up at the door, and Mr. William Champneys was announced. Denia had already breakfasted (her troubles seemed in no wise to have impaired her appetite), and two minutes sufficed her to put on her outdoor things. Having introduced her cousin to Fanny, she seemed in a hurry to be gone. Her last words as she touched Fanny's cheek with her lips were: "I shall be sure to write to you, dear, and let you know how I am getting on." But she never did.
Two months later Mr. Ferdinand Gascoigne fell down a flight of stairs and broke his neck.
Half a year later still came an Australian newspaper, addressed to Winslade, containing an announcement of the marriage of "Evan Wildash, Esq., formerly of Solchester, England, to Denia (née Lidington), widow of Ferdinand Gascoigne, Esq., of London."
When Phil read the announcement aloud he and his wife could only stare at one another in blank bewilderment.
"Evan Wildash alive!" gasped Phil.
"And married to Denia at last!" exclaimed Fanny. "Of all the strange developments brought about by the Loudwater case this last one is the strangest of all."
"By the way," remarked Phil a little later, "you never told me, or else I omitted to ask, what kind of looking man was the cousin in whose charge Mrs. Gascoigne left here."
Thereupon Fanny proceeded to describe Mr. William Champneys to the best of her ability.
"Your description tallies exactly with that of Evan Wildash, as given me at Solchester. And now that I begin to call things to mind, I am nearly sure I was told by somebody that Mr. Champneys, Denia's uncle, was a bachelor. Can it be possible that the man she introduced to you as her cousin was none other than Evan Wildash himself? It would be just like one of Denia's supercheries if it were so."
It was a question to which no answer was ever forthcoming.