Among other visitors in search of the picturesque who had found their
way to Stock Ghyll Force this morning was Mr Santelle, the stranger
who had held the mysterious conversation with Jules the waiter. When
half-way across the bridge, he paused to look at the waterfall, which
from this point was visible in all its beauty. While standing thus, he
was attracted by the sound of voices, and next moment his quick eyes
had discovered Colonel Woodruffe and Madame De Vigne on a jutting point
of rock half-way up the ravine. The lady he recognised, having seen
her start that morning from the hotel with a party of friends; but
the colonel was a stranger to him. Humming an air softly to himself,
he paced slowly over the bridge and began to climb the path on the
opposite side of the stream. When he had got about one-third of the way
up, he reached a point where a more than usually dense growth of shrubs
and evergreens shut out the view both of the waterfall and the ravine.
Pausing here, Mr Santelle with deft but cautious fingers proceeded to
part the branches of the evergreens till, from where he stood, himself
unseen, he obtained a clear view of the group on the opposite side of
the ravine. That group now consisted of three persons.
* * * * *
The approaching footsteps, the sound of which had put an end to the
conversation between the colonel and Madame De Vigne, were those
of M. De Miravel. He had spied them before they saw him. ‘Ah ha!
Voilà le monsieur of the portrait!’ he said to himself. ‘What has my
adorable wife been saying to him? She turns away her face—he hangs his
head—neither of them speak. _Eh bien!_ I propose to myself to interrupt
this interesting _tête-à-tête_.’ He advanced, raised his hat, and
smiling his detestable smile, made one of his most elaborate bows.
‘Pardon. I hope I am not _de trop_,’ he said.—‘Will you not introduce
me to your friend, _chère_ Madame De Vigne?’
Superb in her icy quietude—the quietude of despair—and without a
falter in her voice, she said: ‘Colonel Woodruffe, my husband, Hector
Laroche, ex-convict, number 897.’
The fellow fell back a step in sheer amazement. ‘How!’ he gasped. ‘You
have told him’——
‘Everything.’
She sat down again on the seat from which she had just risen, and
grasping the fingers of one hand tightly with those of the other,
turned her face in the direction of the waterfall.
Laroche’s _sang-froid_ had only deserted him for an instant. ‘_Quelle
bêtise!_’ he muttered with a shrug. Then becoming aware that the
colonel’s cold, haughty stare was fixed full upon him, he retorted with
a look that was a mixture of triumph and tigerish ferocity. Turning to
his wife, and all but touching her shoulder with his lean claw-like
finger, he said with a sneer that was half a snarl: ‘My property,
monsieur—my property!’
Suddenly there came a sound of voices, of laughter, of singing. A troop
of noisy excursionists had invaded the glen.
Mr Santelle had apparently seen as much as he cared to see. He let the
parted branches fall gently together again, and went smilingly on his
way.