He said something to her. What it was I could not gather. Then he pushed open the creaking gate to allow her to pass. Across the moon’s face had drifted a white, fleecy cloud; therefore the light was not so brilliant as half an hour before. Still, I could see his features almost as plainly as I see this paper upon which I am penning my strange adventure, and could recognise every lineament and peculiarity of his countenance.
Having passed through the gate, he took her ungloved hand with an air of old-fashioned gallantry and raised it to his lips. She laughed merrily in rapturous content, and then slowly, very slowly, they strolled along the path that ran within a few feet of where I stood.
My heart leapt with excitement. Their voices sounded above the rushing of the waters, and they were lingering as though unwilling to walk further.
“Ethelwynn has told me,” he was saying. “I can’t make out the reason of his coldness towards her. Poor girl! she seems utterly heart-broken.”
“He suspects,” his wife replied.
“But what ground has he for suspicion?”
I stood there transfixed. They were talking of myself!
They had halted quite close to where I was, and in that low roar had raised their voices so that I could distinguish every word.
“Well,” remarked his wife, “the whole affair was mysterious, that you must admit. With his friend, a man named Jevons, he has been endeavouring to solve the problem.”
“A curse on Ambler Jevons!” he blurted forth in anger, as though he were well acquainted with my friend.