“The mystery becomes daily more puzzling,” he said at length, seating himself. “Tell me all that transpired between you.”
I sank into a chair opposite the renowned chief of the Foreign Office and repeated the conversation that had taken place at our interview, while he listened attentively without hazarding a single remark.
“Then again she would tell you nothing,” exclaimed the Earl, when I had concluded. “She refused absolutely to divulge her secret.”
“Yes,” I said. “I promised to forgive if she would only tell me the truth. She refused; so we have parted.”
“And what do you intend doing?”
“I intend to seek the truth for myself,” I answered with fierce resolve.
“How?”
“I have not yet decided,” I said. “The reason she took such infinite pains to conceal her identity is incomprehensible, but her firm resolution to preserve her secret at all hazards appears as though she is in deadly fear of exposure by some person or other who can only be conciliated by absolute silence.”
“Then we must discover who that person is.”
I nodded, answering:—“I intend to do so.”