“Yes. Her flight was evidently pre-arranged, and curiously enough her mother, who lives in Pont Street, has discharged her servants, disposed of a good deal of her property, and also departed.”
“Gone together, no doubt,” the Earl observed, frowning reflectively.
“But is it not very strange that she should have left the stolen convention behind? Surely if my wife were actually a Russian agent she would never have been guilty of such indiscretion,” I said.
“The mystery is inexplicable, Deedes,” he declared, with a heavy look, half of pain, half of bewilderment. “Absolutely inexplicable.”
This aged man, to whose firmness, clever statesmanship, and calm foresight England owed her place as foremost among the Powers, was trembling with an excitement he strove in vain to suppress. In manner that surprised me, his cold, cynical face relaxed, and placing his thin, bony hand upon my shoulder with fatherly tenderness, Her Majesty’s most trusted Minister urged me to confide in him all my suspicions and my fears.
“You have, I believe, after all, been cruelly wronged, Deedes,” he added in a low, harsh tone. “I sympathise with you because I myself once felt the loss of a wife deeply, and I know what feelings must be yours now that you suspect the woman you have trusted and loved to have been guilty of base treachery and espionage. She, or someone in association with her, has besmirched England’s honour, and brought us to the very verge of a terrible national disaster. Providentially, this was averted; by what means we have not yet ascertained, although our diplomatic agents at the Court of the Tzar are striving day and night to ascertain; yet the fact remains that we were victimised by some daring secret agent who sacrificed everything in order to accomplish the master-stroke of espionage. I can but re-echo the thanks to Heaven uttered by my gracious Sovereign when she received the news that war had been averted; nevertheless it is my duty—nay, it is yours, Deedes, to strive on without resting, in order that this mystery may be satisfactorily unravelled.”
For a moment we were silent. Then in a voice that I felt painfully conscious was broken by grief and emotion, I related to him the whole of the wretched story of my marriage, my suspicions, the discovery of Ella in Kensington Gardens, how I had taxed her with flirtation and frivolity, our peace-making, and her sudden and unexpected flight.
He heard me through to the end with bent head, sighing now and then sympathetically. Then he slowly asked,—“Did you ever refer to those earlier incidents, such as the death of that young man Ogle? Remember, whatever you tell me I shall regard as strictly confidential.”
“I seldom mentioned it, as she desired me not to do so.”
“When you referred to it, what was her attitude?” he inquired, in a pained tone, the furrows on his high white brow deep and clearly defined.