“Oh, some months,” I replied. “The fact is, I’m engaged to his daughter.”
“His daughter!” echoed the Frenchman, looking at me quickly with a searching glance. Then he gave vent to a low grunt, and stroked his grey pointed beard.
“And it was after this engagement that the attempt was made upon you—eh?” he inquired.
“No, before.”
The foreigner remained silent for a few moments. He seemed considerably puzzled. I could not make him out. The fact that he was acquainted with my name showed that he was unduly interested in me, even though he had partially denied it.
“Why do you ask this?” I demanded, as we still stood together at the bottom of St. James’s Street.
“Ah, nothing,” he laughed. “But—well, I really fear I’ve aroused your suspicions unduly. Perhaps it is not so very extraordinary, after all, that in these days of rapid communication two men should catch sight of each other in a Manchester hotel, and, later on, meet in a street in London—eh?”
“I regard the coincidence as a strange one, monsieur,” I replied stiffly, “if it is really an actual coincidence.”
For aught I knew, the fellow might be a friend of Pennington, or an accomplice of those rascally assassins. Had I not been warned by Shuttleworth, and also by Sylvia herself, of another secret attempt upon my life?
I was wary now, and full of suspicion.