So I waited in patience in the vicinity, eagerly watching for the advent of the one person beside myself and the undertaker who knew of the last resting-place of the mysterious man who had deliberately destroyed his fortune.
I wandered among the graves for a full hour, until of a sudden the cemetery-keeper approached me, and in a low voice said—
“Look, over yonder, sir! That tall young lady in black with the chauffeur carrying the wreath: that’s the lady who comes daily to Mr Arnold’s grave.”
I looked, but, curiously enough, she had turned and was leaving the spot without depositing the wreath she had brought.
“Somebody’s watching her, sir,” remarked the man, “Perhaps she recognises you. She’s taking the wreath away again!”
The chauffeur was walking close behind her along the central avenue as though about to leave the burial-ground, when of a sudden she crossed the grass to a newly made grave, and there her man deposited the wreath.
She had detected somebody watching—perhaps she had suspicion of the keeper in conversation with myself; at any rate, she resorted to the ruse of placing the wreath upon the grave of a stranger.
Fortunately, I had been able to obtain a good look at her handsome, refined features, and I decided that hers was a countenance which I should recognise again anywhere.
I looked around, but could see no one in the vicinity to arouse her suspicion—nobody, save myself.
Why did she hold me in fear? By what manner had she been aware of the mysterious man’s death, or that I had been his friend?