With a great sigh he gathered her into his arms. She nestled her head on his shoulder and with a happy laugh said,
“If you had not spoken to me, I think I should have to have spoken to you. My brother has been constantly warning me that I am throwing myself away on you. Fletcher taunted me with the same thing, and I am sure all those police constables must have seen the state of things to-day, when I gave myself away completely.”
His manner was gay, in contrast to his usual gravity.
“Well you have given yourself away now completely, I hope. Come, let’s walk to The Red Cote, and tell your brother.”
With a happy smile, she took his hand and they went out together.
Chapter XIV.
A Vision of the Night
The news that Halley and Ena were engaged was the last straw to Fletcher. One thing was now firm in his mind, to find out the truth of the whole matter, and not to fail in this at any rate, for failure was intolerable after all the indignities he had suffered.
In spite of his common-sense mind, he began to have a feeling that something not altogether natural had played a hand in the affair.
There was the mysterious “Other Man” who obtruded himself at every turn, elusive and vague, but always felt.
The man who had talked with Reckavile, and whose voice Brown had sworn was Halley’s. The man who had been in the library with one who, he was morally certain, was Southgate. The one who had appeared to him in the library under such strange circumstances, and the man with a bleeding wound who had been bandaged up by Sefton.