"No. I have kept it from everyone. I said that the summons I received from him I had destroyed."
"In the circumstances I will ask you, Enid, to allow me to retain it," he said. "I want to show it to Trendall."
"You may show it to Mr. Trendall, but I ask you, for the present, to make no further use of it," replied the girl.
He moved a step closer to her and caught her disengaged hand in his, the glad light in her eyes telling him that his action was one which she reciprocated, yet some sense of her unworthiness of this great love causing her to hesitate.
"I will promise," said the strong, manly fellow in a low tone. "I ought to have made allowances, but, in the horror of my suspicion, I did not, and I'm sorry. I love you, Enid—I had never really loved until I met you, until I held your hand in mine!"
Enid's true, overburdened heart was only too ready to respond to his fervent appeal. She suffered her lover to draw her to himself, and their lips met in a long, passionate caress that blotted out all the past. He spoke quick, rapid words of ardent affection. To Enid, after all the hideous events she had passed through, it seemed too happy to be true that so much bliss was in store for her, and she remained there, with Walter's arm around her, silently content, that fervid kiss being the first he had ever imprinted upon her full red lips.
Thus they remained in each other's arms, their two true hearts beating in unison, their kisses mingling, their twin souls united in the first moments of their newly-found ecstasy of perfect love.
The fight had been a fierce one, but their true hearts had won, and, as they whispered each other's fond affection, Enid promised to be the wife of the honest, fearless man of whose magnificent work in the detection of crime the country had never dreamed. They read his books and were enthralled by them, but little did they think that he was one of the never-sleeping watch-dogs upon great criminals, or that the sweet-faced girl, who was now his affianced wife, had risked her life, her love, her honour, in order to assist him.
Next afternoon Sir Hugh called upon Walter at his dingy chambers in Holles Street, and as they sat together the old general, after a long and somewhat painful silence, exclaimed:
"I know, Fetherston, that you must be mystified how, in my position, I should have become implicated in the doings of that criminal gang."