“She’s a mystery,” I declared; “a complete mystery.”
“She is—and yet do you not find her far more beautiful than in the old days? I do.”
“Perhaps her beauty is fatal—like that of so many women,” I sighed. “The source of many a woman’s unhappiness is to be found in her face.”
“Last night tragedy was written deeply upon hers,” my companion said, in a low, sympathetic voice. “I wonder what has occurred?”
I, too, wondered. Her firm refusal to allow me to kiss her upon the lips showed her either to be in deadly fear of the jealousy of another; or that she was true to the vow she had given, even though she still loved me. Yet who could be this person whom she had undoubtedly met after we had parted? Why had he attacked her? Why had she fled again so quickly? Was she in fear of some one who was still lurking in the vicinity? A sense of deadly chilliness stole over me.
The whole affair was, indeed, a mystery, yet not so utterly bewildering as were certain of the events which followed—events which were so strange and startling that they formed a problem that was for so long beyond solution.
Being so passionately devoted to Ella I determined to follow her, demand an explanation of the attack upon her and seek to discover the identity of her unknown lover—the man whom she had admitted to me she was to marry under compulsion.
I had risen from my chair, expressing my intention of driving into Swanage in the hope that she had not already left, when the door opened, and a dark, well-dressed man about forty, clean-shaven, having the appearance of a naval officer and dressed in a dark grey flannel suit, came forward with extended hand to my companion, wishing her good-morning.
From his easy manner I saw that he was a guest in the house, although on the previous night I had not seen him.
“Will you allow me to introduce you?” Lucie said, and next instant presented the newcomer to me as “My father’s friend, Mr Gordon-Wright.”