“No. But your theory regarding falsehoods has, I must admit, caused some suspicion in my mind.”
“Of what?”
“Well, of prevaricating in order to shield a woman—Maud it may be.”
“I am not shielding her!” he declared. “There is nothing to shield. I love her very dearly indeed, and she loves me devotedly in return. Cannot you imagine, Max, my perturbed state of mind now that she has disappeared without a word?”
“Has she sent you no secret message of her safety?” Max asked, seriously.
“Not a word.”
“And you do not know, then, if she has not met with foul play?”
“I don’t. That’s just it! Sometimes—” And he rose from his chair and paced the room in agony of mind. “Sometimes—I—I feel as if I shall go mad. I love her—just as you love Marion! Sometimes I feel assured of her safety—that she and her father have been compelled to disappear for political or other reasons—and then at others a horrible idea haunts me that my love may be dead—the victim of some vile, treacherous plot to take from me all that has made my life worth living!”
“Stop!” cried Max, starting to his feet and facing him. “You love her—eh?”
“Better—ah! better than my own life!” he cried in deep earnestness, his troubled face being an index of his mind.