“What causes you to allege this?” she asked quickly, looking sharply into my eyes.
“Because I have seen them together,” I answered. “I have overheard their conversation.”
“It can’t be true that they are close acquaintances,” she said in a low, mechanical voice, as though speaking to herself. “It’s impossible.”
“Why impossible?” I inquired.
“Because there are facts which have conclusively shown that there could have been no love between them.”
“Are those facts so remarkable, Muriel, that you are compelled to conceal them from me?” I asked seriously in earnest.
“At present they are,” she faltered. “What you have told me has increased the mystery tenfold. I had never expected that they were friends.”
“And if they were, what then?” I inquired in eagerness.
“Then the truth must be stranger than I had ever dreamed,” she answered in a voice which betrayed her blank bewilderment.
The striking of the clock warned her that it was time she was going, and caused me to recollect that a man would call in a few minutes to repay a loan I had given him. He was an officer—a very decent fellow whom I had known for years, and who for a few weeks had been in rather low water. But he was again in funds, and having met me at the club that afternoon he promised to run over at ten o’clock, smoke a cigar, and repay me.