"No, I was not. I had yourself as company."
The colour in an instant left her cheeks.
"Me?" she gasped.
"Yes," I replied, in a low, earnest voice. "You were also in the park
last night."
She was silent.
"I did not see you," she faltered. Then, as though recovering her
self-possession, she added, with some hauteur, "And even if I chose to
walk here after every one had gone to rest, I really don't think that
you have any right to question my actions."
"Forgive me," I said quickly. "I do not question you in the least; I
have no right to do so. You are certainly free to do as you please,
save where you neglect your own interests or place yourself in peril--as
you did last night."
"In peril of what?" she demanded defiantly.
"In peril of falling a victim to the vengeance of an enemy."
"I don't understand you."
"Then I will speak more frankly, Miss Wynd, in the hope that you will be
equally frank with me," I said, my eyes fixed upon her. "You were last
night, or, rather, at an early hour this morning, with a person whom you
have met on a previous occasion."
"I admit that. It is, indeed, useless to deny it," she answered.
"And yet, on the last occasion that you met, you nearly lost your life!
Was it wise?"
"Nearly lost my life?" she echoed. "I do not follow you."
"The woman in black who called at Gloucester Square on that evening not
so many days ago. You surely remember her? Was it not after her
departure that her unaccountable, evil influence remained?"
"Certainly. But what of her?"
"You were with her last night."
"With her?" she gasped, surprised. "I certainly was not."
"Do you deny having seen her?" I demanded.
"Most assuredly," she responded promptly. "You certainly did not see us
together."
"And your companion was not a woman?"
"No; it was a man."
"Who?"
"I have already told you that I object to any one interfering in my
private affairs."
"A lover?" I said, with some asperity perhaps. "You are entirely at
liberty to think what you please. I only deny that I have set eyes upon
my mysterious visitor since that evening in Gloucester Square."
"Well, she was in the house last night," I answered decisively. "She
was in your room."
"In my room?" gasped my well-beloved, in alarm. "Impossible?"
"I watched her enter there," I replied; and then continuing, gave her an
exact account of all that transpired--how she had first entered my room,
and how the strange evil of her presence had so strangely affected me
afterwards.
"It's absolutely astounding," she declared. "I was utterly ignorant of
it all. Are you absolutely certain that it was the same woman?"
"The description given of her by yourself and your cousin's servant is
exact. She came here with some distinctly sinister purpose, that is
quite evident."
"But she must have entered by the servants' quarters if she passed
through the hall as you have described. She seemed to have been in
search of us both."
"No doubt," I answered. "And if, as you say, you were absent from the
room at the time, it is evident that she went straight out into the park
in search of you. In that case she would have left the room before I
tried the door, and would be ignorant of the fact that I had detected
her presence in the house."
"But what could she want with us?" she asked in a voice which told me
that this unexpected revelation had unnerved her.
"Ah, that I cannot tell," I responded. "She came here with an evil
purpose, and fortunately we were both absent from our rooms."
She knit her brows in thought. Possibly she was recalling some event
during her midnight walk.
"And you say that you actually experienced in your own room, on
returning there, an exactly similar sensation to that which we all felt
at Gloucester Square?"
"Exactly."
"Do you know," she faltered, "I felt the same sensation in my own room
this morning--very faintly, but still the same feeling of being chilled.
What is your private opinion about it, Doctor?"
"My opinion is that there is a conspiracy afoot against both of us," I
responded very earnestly. "For some unaccountable reason we are marked
down as victims--why, I cannot tell. You will forgive me for speaking
plainly, but I believe that you alone hold the key to the mystery, that
you alone know the motive of this vengeance--if vengeance it be--and if
you were to tell me frankly of the past we might unite to vanquish our
enemies."
"What do you mean by the past?" she inquired, with just a touch of
indignation.
"There are several questions I have put to you which you have refused to
answer," I replied. "The light which you could throw upon two or three
points, now in obscurity, might lead me to a knowledge of the whole
truth."
She sighed, as though the burden of her thoughts oppressed her.
"I have told you all I can," she answered.
"No; you have told me all you dare. Is not that a more truthful way of
putting it?"
She nodded, but made no response.
"You have feared to tell me of the one fact concerning yourself which
has, in my belief, the greatest bearing upon your perilous situation."
"And what is that?"
"The fact that you are married!"
Her face blanched to the lips, her hands trembled and for a moment my
words held her dumb.
"Who told you that?" she gasped, in a low voice.
"I knew it long ago," I replied.
"Nora has betrayed my secret," she observed in a hard voice.
"No," I declared; "your cousin has told me nothing. I have known the
fact for months past."
"For months past! How?"
"You are not frank with me," I replied; "therefore I may be at liberty
to preserve what secrets I think best."
"I--I do not deny it," she faltered. Then, in a voice trembling with
emotion, she added, "Ah, Doctor Colkirk, if you knew all that I have
suffered you would quite understand my fear lest any one should discover
my secret. I often wonder how it is that I have not taken my own life
long, long ago."
"No," I said in deep sympathy, taking her hand. "Bear up against all
these troubles. Let me assist you as your friend."
"But you cannot," she declared despairingly, tears welling in her eyes.
"You can only assist me by keeping my secret. Will you promise me to do
that?"
"Most certainly," I replied. "But I want to do more. I want to
penetrate the veil of mystery which seems to surround your marriage. I
want--"
"You can never do that," she interrupted quickly. "I have tried and
tried, but have failed."
"Why?"
"Because, strange though it may seem, I am entirely unaware of the
identity of my husband. I have never seen him."
I was silent. Should I reveal to her the truth? She could not believe
me, if I did. What proof could I show her?
"And you do not know his name?"
"No; I do not even know his name," she answered. "All I know is that by
this marriage I am debarred for ever from all love and happiness. I
have nothing to live for--nothing! Each day increases the mystery, and
each day brings to me only bitterness and despair. Ah! how a woman may
suffer and still live."
"Have you no means by which to discover the identity of your unknown
husband?" I inquired.
"None whatever," she answered. "I know that I am married--beyond that,
nothing."
"And who else is in possession of this secret?" I inquired.
"Nora."
"No one else?"
"No one--to my knowledge."
"But you are, I understand, engaged to marry Cyril Chetwode," I said,
anxious to get the truth. "How can you marry him if you are really a
wife?"
"Ah! that's just it!" she cried. "I am the most miserable girl in all
the world. Everything is so hazy, so enshrouded in mystery. I am
married, and yet I have no husband."
"But is it not perhaps best that, under the circumstances, you should be
apart," I said. "He may be old, or ugly, or a man you could never
love."
"I dread to think of it," she said hoarsely. "Sometimes I wonder what
he is really like, and who he really is."
"And, at the same time, you love Cyril Chetwode?" I said, the words
almost choking me.