“The description given of her by yourself and your cousin’s servant is exact. She came here with some distinctly sinister purpose, that is quite evident.”
“But she must have entered by the servants’ quarters if she passed through the hall as you have described. She seemed to have been in search of us both.”
“No doubt,” I answered. “And if, as you say, you were absent from the room at the time, it is evident that she went straight out into the park in search of you. In that case she would have left the room before I tried the door, and would be ignorant of the fact that I had detected her presence in the house.”
“But what could she want with us?” she asked in a voice which told me that this unexpected revelation had unnerved her.
“Ah, that I cannot tell,” I responded. “She came here with an evil purpose, and fortunately we were both absent from our rooms.”
She knit her brows in thought. Possibly she was recalling some event during her midnight walk.
“And you say that you actually experienced in your own room, on returning there, an exactly similar sensation to that which we all felt at Gloucester Square?”
“Exactly.”
“Do you know,” she faltered, “I felt the same sensation in my own room this morning—very faintly, but still the same feeling of being chilled. What is your private opinion about it, Doctor?”
“My opinion is that there is a conspiracy afoot against both of us,” I responded very earnestly. “For some unaccountable reason we are marked down as victims—why, I cannot tell. You will forgive me for speaking plainly, but I believe that you alone hold the key to the mystery, that you alone know the motive of this vengeance—if vengeance it be—and if you were to tell me frankly of the past we might unite to vanquish our enemies.”