“Remember, dear, we leave at six o’clock!”
The girl smiled back, waved her hand, and then went on with her companion.
Perhaps Mrs. Beverley was not altogether pleased with the situation, for her secret intention had all along been to marry Sylvia into the peerage. Had she not come to London for that purpose? Yet, after all, Geoffrey Falconer was a charming and highly-intelligent young fellow, whose several discoveries in wireless were, she had been told, likely to bring him a considerable fortune in the future.
As the pair halted on the top of the hill, Sylvia suddenly paused, and said:
“Do you know, Geoffrey, I can’t help thinking about that strange man you saw in the Polurrian last night.”
“Yes,” he said. “Somehow I, too, can’t forget him. I first met him in the wagon-restaurant of the express from Paris to Calais about three weeks ago. He sat at the next table, and though he was reading the Matin between the courses at lunch, I noticed that he seemed to be watching me.”
“Not another Edward Everard, I hope,” said the girl, whose hair was being blown across her face by the sea breeze which was just springing up.
“I hope not,” laughed her merry lover. “But he seems to have followed me so persistently. Why I cannot tell. Possibly he may have learnt my profession, and of my post in the Marconi service.”
“And if he has, then, what motive has he for following you? One thing is reassuring. Your secret diagrams are now in a safe place. When did you see him again after meeting him in the train?”
“On the boat, crossing to Dover. Then I lost sight of him, until one morning, when I arrived by train at Chelmsford as usual, I saw him lounging downstairs in the booking-hall. At first I did not recognise him, but after I had passed and was walking along that path which is the short cut to the Works, I recollected the incident on the Calais express. Then it all passed from my mind again until I encountered him accidentally in the lounge of the Polurrian. Why was he here?”