“Violet Hanbury?” I cried, starting and looking to his face. “Do you mean the Honourable Violet Hanbury, daughter of Lord Isleworth?”
“The same,” he replied quickly. “What!—are you acquainted with her?”
“Well, scarcely,” I answered. “I—I merely know her by repute. I have seen her photograph in London shop-windows among the types of English beauty.”
I did not tell him all I knew. Vi Hanbury, the beauty of a season, had been mixed up in some unenviable affair. The matter, I remembered, had been enshrouded in a good deal of mystery at the time, but gossips’ tongues had not been idle.
“Ah!” he continued, enthusiastically; “I have no need then to describe her, for you know how handsome she is. Well—we loved one another; but it was the old story. Her parents forbade her to hold communication with me for two reasons—firstly, because I was not wealthy, and secondly, because they were determined that she should marry Henri de Largentière, a sallow, wizened man old enough to be her father, but who had been Minister of Education in the Brisson Cabinet.”
“Yes,” I said; “the engagement was discussed a good deal in the clubs after its announcement in the Morning Post.”
“Engagement? Sacré!” he exclaimed, with anger. “She was snatched from me and given to that old imbecile. I was compelled to fly from her and leave her, a pure and honest woman, at their mercy, because—because—”
He paused for a moment. His voice had faltered and the words seemed to choke him. Flinging away his cigarette viciously, he took a gulp from the tin cup beside him, then, continuing, said—
“Because Violet’s cousin, Jack Fothergill, who was one of her most ardent admirers and had declared his love, was discovered one night dead in his chambers in St. James’s Street—he had been murdered!”
“Murdered?” I ejaculated. “I don’t remember hearing of it. I must have been abroad at the time.”