He treated her with the greatest consideration and courtesy. And as they sat together at their meals, she presiding, they often burst out laughing at the incongruity of the situation. More than once she inquired his name, but he always laughingly evaded her.
“My name really doesn’t matter,” he said. “You will only remember me with hatred, Miss Griffin.”
“Though you are holding me here against my will,” she replied, “yet of your conduct towards me I have nothing to complain.”
He only bowed in graceful acknowledgment. No word passed his lips.
On the third morning, about noon, a ring came, and Gwen, startled, flew into her bedroom and locked the door.
The visitor was none other than Sir Felix Challas, who, grasping the tall man’s hand, said:
“Welcome back, my dear Charlie. I’m sorry I couldn’t come before, but I was called over to Paris on very important business.” Then lowering his voice he said: “Got the girl here still—eh?”
The other nodded.
“I want to put a few questions to her,” Sir Felix said in an undertone, when they were together in the sitting-room, “and if she don’t answer me truly, then by Heaven it will be the worse for her. You remember the girl of that German inventor, three years ago—eh?” he asked with a meaning smile.
The tall man nodded. He recollected that poor girl’s fate because she had refused to betray her father’s secret to the great financier.