The interview had been an extraordinary one. Markwick, who had with such well-feigned ignorance declared himself unacquainted with me, possessed a most remarkable personality. The mystery that surrounded him was as impenetrable as that which had enveloped Sybil, but I was compelled to admit within myself that I shared his suspicion as to Bethune’s guilt. Yet my friend’s open defiance was absolutely bewildering. He had engaged his enemy with his own weapons, and for the present, at any rate, had vanquished him.
Chapter Eighteen.
A Revelation and its Price.
No word was exchanged between Jack and myself regarding the interview with Markwick. It was a subject we both avoided, and, as he was happy with Dora, I hesitated to inquire into the antecedents of the mysterious individual who had repudiated all knowledge of me with such consummate impudence. Among my letters one morning a week later, however, I found a note from Mabel dated from her town house, asking me to run up and call upon her at once, and requesting me to keep the fact a strict secret. “I want to consult you,” she wrote, “about a matter that closely concerns yourself, therefore do not fail to come. I shall be at home to you at any time. Do not mention the matter to either Jack or Dora.”
During my ride with our two visitors I pondered over this summons, which was rather extraordinary in view of our last interview, and at length resolved to take the mid-day train to town.
Soon after five o’clock that evening I was ushered into the Fyneshade drawing-room, a great handsome apartment resplendent with gilt furniture and hangings of peacock-blue silk, where I found Mabel alone, seated on a low chair before the fire reading a novel.
“Ah! I received your wire,” she exclaimed, casting her book aside, and rising quickly to meet me. “It is awfully good of you to come.”
She looked very handsome in a wondrous tea-gown of silk and chiffon, and as I sat down opposite her and she handed me a cup, I reflected that the journalistic chroniclers were not far wrong in designating her “one of the prettiest women in London.”