“Well, it certainly is a theory—but a very strange one,” she answered, her eyes fixed thoughtfully away to the distant horizon. “But what you have told me is so extraordinary. Ella is engaged to be married in a month. To whom? You have not told me that.”
I was silent for a moment, wondering whether I should tell her. So complete were the confidences now between us that I saw I need conceal nothing from her. We entertained a mutual sympathy for each other—I broken and despairing, and she a woman with the mark of fate upon her countenance.
“She is to marry Gordon-Wright,” I said in a low, hard voice.
“Gordon-Wright!” she gasped, drawing back and staring at me open-mouthed. “Ella to marry that man! Impossible!”
“The fellow is compelling her to become his wife. He holds her in his power by some mysterious bond which she fears to break. She is in terror of him. Ella—my own Ella—is that man’s victim.”
“But—but you mustn’t allow this, Mr Leaf!” she cried quickly, and from the anxious expression in her countenance I saw that my announcement had struck her a-heap in amazement. “Ella must never marry him!” she added. “But are you sure of this—are you quite sure?”
“She had admitted it to me with her own lips.”
“Then she must be warned—she cannot know.”
“Know what?”
“Know the facts that are known to me. She is in ignorance, or she would never consent to become that man’s wife!”