Yes, I may as well here confess it. I loved Asta Seymour.
From the first moment that she had met me in that lonely country road, and I had sat by her side in the car, she had exercised over me a strange and fatal fascination. I found myself beneath the spell of her bewitching beauty.
I was drawn towards her by some strange, irresistible, unknown power—drawn to her as the moth is drawn towards the candle.
Fascinated alike by the mystery surrounding her foster-father and by her sweet pensive face, I had been constantly in her company. My thoughts were ever of her, to the oblivion of all else in the world. She was all in all to me, and I was now involuntarily her slave, so entangled had I become in the net of her sweet and wondrous charm. Ah yes! I loved her—loved her with all the strength of my being, with all the passion of my soul.
But I had not spoken. My secret was as yet my own.
Nevertheless, it was in order to be near her that I, like Nicholson, had accepted Shaw’s invitation; in order also to protect her, for, knowing what I did of the man’s peril of arrest, I had been seized by a strange presage of evil that might befall her.
I lay awake, listening to the clanging of the old bells of a monastery near by, and thinking it all over. Yes, in those few weeks I had grown to love her, even though she undoubtedly was in possession of some strange if not guilty secret.
Yet how could I reveal my heart to her while recollections of poor Guy still, filled her mind? No, I must wait and watch in patience, my heart tortured constantly by the burning fires of unspoken love.
Thinking, reflecting, pondering, resolving, I still lay there, when suddenly I became conscious that my friend in the adjoining room was no longer snoring.
I heard a curious sound. He gave a quick, loud gasp, as though of alarm, followed by a murmured growl. Was he speaking in his sleep? I listened attentively until my ears caught another sound. He had risen and was moving about his room.