"I believe it was."
"You believe," I echoed. "You must know, if you are prepared to
sacrifice Ella to that man!"
"He probably is in possession of some secret of hers," she remarked
slowly.
"And she on her part, it appears, is in possession of some secret of
his."
"And of my father's."
"What is it she knows?" I asked. "Come, give me some hint of it," I
urged. "A moment ago you were my friend, prepared to assist poor Ella
to escape--yet now you declare that they must marry."
"Yes," was her hard response. "I did not know that she had acted the
spy in my father's house--that she was in love with Gordon-Wright and
had come to see him while he was under our roof."
"She's not in love with him," I protested. "She denies it.
Unfortunately she is his victim."
"She deceived you once, remember. Why do you still trust her?"
"Her deception was one for self-sacrifice--to save her father."
"And my refusal to assist you in saving her from Gordon-Wright is from
the same motive."
"To save your father?"
"How do I know? I tell you I am puzzled."
"Then the secret is perhaps a guilty one?" I said seriously.
"She must marry this man," was all her response.
"And this from you, Miss Miller--you, who have always posed as her
friend!" I exclaimed reproachfully, for her change of manner had
utterly confounded me. I had relied upon her as my friend.
"I am certainly not her enemy," she hastened to assert. "To see her the
wife of Gordon-Wright is my very last desire. Yet it is unfortunately
imperative for--" and she stopped short, without concluding her
sentence.
"For what?"
"For--well--for my peace of mind," she said, though I was sure that she
had intended saying something else.
"You have already told me that this fellow is unfitted to be her
husband," I exclaimed. "Surely you, her oldest friend, will never allow
her to commit this fatal error--to wreck her own happiness and mine,
without lifting a finger to save her. Need I repeat to you what I told
you at the riverside at Studland, with what a fierce passion I adore
her, how that she is mine--my very life?"
"I know," my companion said, in a voice slightly more sympathetic. "I
admit that she ought to marry you--that she is yours in heart. Yet in
her secret engagement to Gordon-Wright there is a mystery which makes me
suspicious."
"Suspicious of what?"
She sighed, and moving forward rested her hands upon the balcony, gazing
again towards the fiery sunset.
"Well--to put it plainly--that she is deceiving both of us."
"Deceiving us! In what way?"
"Ah! that is what we have not yet discovered," replied the girl. "Think
of her ingenuity in coming to our house in order to see that man in
secret, of how cleverly she made us believe that they were strangers--of
her listening to my father's words when he spoke with Gordon-Wright!
All this proves to me that she is working with some mysterious end."
"She has been endeavouring to effect her emancipation from that
scoundrel," I protested hotly. "She has been trying to break away from
him, but in vain. Her motive, Miss Miller, is not an evil one as
regards either your father or yourself, you may rest assured. She only
desires freedom--freedom to live and to love, the freedom that you, if
you will, can assist her to obtain."
"I--" she cried. "How can I?"
"You know who this fellow Gordon-Wright really is. If you will, you can
save her."
"I can't. That's just where the difficulty lies."
"Then if you will not, I will!" I cried, angry at her sudden withdrawal
after all the sympathy I had shown her, and goaded by thoughts of my
love's martyrdom. "Fortunately I happen to know that Gordon-Wright
alias Lieutenant Shacklock is wanted by the police of half a dozen
different countries, as well as certain of his associates, and a word
from me will effect his arrest." She started, and her face went ashen
pale. She saw that I knew the truth, and in an instant held me in
dread.
"You--" she gasped. "You would do this--_you_?"