“I don’t know,” she faltered. “I cannot tell why, but I have a distinct distrust of the future, a feeling that we are drifting apart.”
She spoke the truth. A woman in love is quick of perception, and no feigned affection on the man’s part can ever blind her.
I saw that she read my heart like an open book, and at once strove to reassure her, trying to bring myself to believe that I had misjudged her.
“No, no, dearest,” I said, rising with a hollow pretence of caressing her tears away. “You are nervous, and upset by the tragedy. Try to forget it all.”
“Forget!” she echoed in a hard voice, her eyes cast down despondently. “Forget that night! Ah, no, I can never forget it—never!”
CHAPTER XIV.
IS DISTINCTLY CURIOUS.
The dark days of the London winter brightened into spring, but the mystery of old Mr. Courtenay’s death remained an enigma inexplicable to police and public. Ambler Jevons had prosecuted independent inquiries assiduously in various quarters, detectives had watched the subsequent movements of Short and the other servants, but all to no purpose. The sudden disappearance of Short was discovered to be due to the illness of his brother.