“But, Mr. Garfield, I see no reason why I should be upon the brink of this mysterious abyss!” she cried. “You don’t explain the situation sufficiently fully.”
“Because at present I cannot do so. No one regrets it more than myself. There is a grim mystery—a very great mystery—and I intend, with your assistance, to escape my enemy and clear it up.”
“Who is your enemy?”
“Oswald De Gex! He is my enemy as well as yours,” I said very seriously. “If you were in the possession of such facts as those I have gathered during the past week or so, you would be startled and—well, perhaps terrified. But I only again beg of you to have a care of yourself. You have promised silence, and I, on my part, will carry on my search for the truth.”
“The truth of what?”
“The truth concerning Gabrielle Engledue.”
The pretty little woman again looked at me very straight in the face for some moments without speaking. Then, with a strange hardness about her mouth, she said:
“Mr. Garfield, take it from me, you will never discover what you are in search of. The truth is too well hidden.”
“What? Then you know something—eh?” I cried quickly.