“Well, what of that? Can’t you whisper, you fool?” and I heard an imprecation from between a man’s set teeth.
Stealthily, in order not to attract attention, I turned and parting the foliage saw directly behind me the gleam of a light dress in the darkness. At first I could not distinguish its wearer, but almost at that moment her companion struck a match to light his cigar, and its fickle flame illuminated both their faces.
The woman in the light dress was the Countess of Fyneshade, and the man, wearing a heavy fur travelling-coat, and with several days’ growth of beard on his dark, frowning face, was the mysterious individual who had met me on the night I had been married to Sybil.
“So you have come from Marseilles, for what purpose?” exclaimed Mabel angrily. “Merely to run risk of compromising me, and to tell me absolutely nothing. You must think me an idiot?”
“Have I not already told you the result of my inquiries into the movements of Bethune?”
“I have surreptitiously read each letter that Dora has received from him, and I was well aware of your devilish cunning, for I have already had experience of it myself.”
“So you entertain a suspicion that Gilbert Sternroyd has been murdered—eh?” he said, with a low laugh, not deigning to remark upon the uncomplimentary terms in which she had spoken. “Surely a young man may—er—disappear for a week or so, without any great harm coming to him?”
“Mine is not a mere suspicion,” she declared quickly. “I am absolutely certain he has met with foul play.”
“Why?”
“Because three days before his disappearance he told me in confidence that an enemy, whom he would not name, had threatened him.”