“She has been entrapped. She admitted as much.” My companion made no answer. Her brows were knit in thought. What I had revealed to her was both unexpected and puzzling. She evidently knew Gordon-Wright’s true character, though it was hardly likely she would admit it to me.
Yet I wondered, as I had lately very often wondered, whether she were actually in ignorance of her father’s true profession.
“If she has been entrapped, Mr Leaf,” she said slowly, “then she must find a way in which to extricate herself. We must never allow her to become that man’s wife.”
“He is your father’s friend, and yet you hold him in little esteem?” I remarked.
“What I know is my own affair,” was her hard response. “It is sufficient for us to say that Ella is yours, and must be yours.”
“Ah! yes,” I sighed in despair, “if only she could be. Yet I fear that it is impossible. This fellow for some mysterious reason holds her future in his hands. She refuses to reveal anything to me, except that to break away from him is impossible. Indeed, the real reason of her flying visit to you at Studland was to consult him. She knew he was visiting there, and slipped away from her father in order to call upon you.”
“But we had no idea that they were acquainted,” Lucie declared.
“After she had gone to bed your father and Gordon-Wright remained up, talking, she crept back downstairs, I believe, and overheard their conversation.”
“She did!” she gasped, her cheeks going pale. “She heard what they said! Are you quite sure of this?”
“Yes.”