lucie is confidential.
“this is not altogether an accidental meeting, miss miller,” i confessed at once to her. “the fact is i have waited in vain for your return to granville gardens, and at length have thought it wise to come here in search of you.”
“who told you that we lived here?” she inquired breathlessly.
“no one told me, i discovered the fact quite accidentally,” was my answer. “remember that your family is an old one, and in debrett, therefore it was easy to find out the home of the dorsetshire millers.” my rather plausible explanation apparently satisfied her, for looking sharply around, she said:—
“if we are to talk, mr leaf, let us cross yonder stile and slip across the fields. we shall not be seen there.” so i helped her over the stile she indicated and we passed together along a steep path beside a high hawthorn hedge, and a few minutes later descended into the hollow where the village and sea were lost to view.
“i certainly expected you to return,” i said, half reproachfully. “i believed that you would wish to hear something further regarding the dead man. you refused to tell me his name, but i have discovered it. he was nardini, the absconding ex-minister of justice in rome.”
“who told you so?” she inquired, looking at me with considerable suspicion.
“i took possession of his papers. they explained everything,” i replied simply. “and now,” i added, “the reason i am here is to inquire if i can assist you in any way, and to repeat my readiness to do so.”
“no,” she answered, shaking her head sadly. “no assistance that you could render me, mr leaf, would, i regret to say, be of any avail,” and i saw tears welling in her eyes.
“but you must not give up like this,” i urged. “you must endeavour to shield yourself, even if you fail, after all. the man is dead; his mouth is closed.”
“ah, yes. that is just it. if he lived he might, perhaps, have had compassion upon me.”
“he refused to tell the truth—that you were at his villa at tivoli on that evening, and therefore could not have been in rome, eh?”
she halted, glaring at me open-mouthed. she saw that i knew the truth, and after a few moments’ silence with her eyes fixed upon mine, she exclaimed in a low, hoarse voice:—
“he preserved silence because he dared not tell the truth. he was a cur and a coward.”
“and also a thief, it would seem,” i added.
“yes—you have seen what the papers are saying about him, i suppose? the police are searching for him all over europe. they have no idea that he is already dead and buried.”
“perhaps it is as well; otherwise the papers would have fallen into their hands. as it is i took possession of them all and restored them to the italian embassy—all but this,” and i drew out her letter of appeal, and, opening it, handed it to her.
she glanced at it, crushed it in her hand with a sigh, her dark eyes still fixed upon mine, as though she were trying to read my innermost thoughts.
“who are your enemies?” i asked in a kindly tone of sympathy. “tell me, miss miller, what have they alleged against you?”
her brows again contracted. she set her lips hard but remained silent, determined not to satisfy me regarding the charge against her.
i pressed her to speak, but she was firm and quite immovable.
“now that nardini is dead i am helpless in the hands of my unscrupulous enemies,” was her low, inert answer.
“that letter is best destroyed,” i said. then with murmured thanks she tore it into tiny fragments and scattered it to the wind which carried the pieces away across the wide field of ripe corn.
i told her nothing of the yellow document, that hideous record which nardini had preserved with her letter.
on the contrary, i implored her pardon for my visit and for my piece of audacious imposture, and, as we walked on together, explained how her father and myself had become friends.
at first she seemed full of fear and suspicion, but gradually, as i gave a full description of how miller had taken me over the house to see the pictures and antiques, and she saw how enthusiastic i was over the beautiful old place, she became reassured. did she know the secret of her father’s double life? in any case i could see that she was prepared to go to any length in order to shield him.
“i expect my aunt has been very much puzzled by your card,” she said. “she will probably be wondering whoever you can be.”
“if you so desire, miss miller, you can explain to your aunt that i am a friend of yours, and that by a mistake of the servant the card was sent to her.”
“a most excellent excuse,” she laughed. “i’ll tell her so, and then if you are still remaining here over to-morrow, perhaps you will call.”
“i shall be only too delighted,” i assured her. “your father i found a most charming man—almost as charming as his daughter.”
“now no compliments please, mr leaf,” she exclaimed, flushing slightly.
“it is not an idle one, i assure you,” i said. “the compliment is equally to your father as to yourself.” and then we strolled forward again along the banks of a small rippling brook overhung by willows and hawthorns. was it possible that she, so full of grace and sweetness, was actually the woman who sammy had declared her to be? no, i could not bring myself to believe it. she spoke with such feeling and sympathy, and she was so full of an ineffable charm that i refused to believe that she was a mere adventuress assisting her father in his direction of some ingenious gang of thieves who worked in secret.
her father, too, was the very last man whom i should have believed to be an adventurer had not the proof been so plain. was not that appeal of lucie’s to nardini an ugly and suspicious truth?
the more suspicious, too, that she would give me no idea of the allegation against her. she evidently feared lest i should make inquiry and discover the disgraceful truth.
presently, as we came to a bend in the stream where the water was deeper, its unruffled surface shining like a mirror, i halted, and looking straight into her face, said:—
“miss miller, yesterday at your house i made a discovery—one that utterly astounded me.”
her countenance went ashen grey.
“a discovery!” she faltered. “what—what do you mean?”
instantly i saw that i had quite unintentionally alarmed her and hastened to set her at her ease.
“i saw upon a table in your drawing-room the photograph of a very dear friend—ella murray. she was your friend, so your father told me. how curious that we should both have been acquainted with her!”
“oh! ella! did you really know poor ella?” she exclaimed quickly, reassured that my discovery was not of a compromising character.
“i knew her very well indeed,” was my slow response. “when were you acquainted with her?”
“oh! years ago. we were together at the sacré coeur at evreux, and both left the convent the same year. she was my most intimate friend, and once or twice came with me here, to studland, when we had our holidays together.”
“she actually visited here!” i exclaimed in surprise.
“several times. mr murray was my father’s friend. as you know, he lived at wichenford, in worcestershire. then we went to reside entirely abroad, and for quite a long time, a year or more, i lost sight of her. she was very beautiful. from a child her wonderful face was everywhere admired. in the convent we girls nicknamed her ‘the little madonna,’ for she bore a striking likeness to the van dyck’s madonna in the pitti in florence, a copy of which hung in the convent chapel.”
“ah, of course!” i cried. now that she recalled that picture, i recognised the extraordinary likeness. perhaps you, who read this chronicle of strange facts, know that small canvas a foot square which hangs in a corner of one of the great gold-ceilinged salons, almost unnoticed save by the foreign art enthusiast. the expression of sweetness and adoration distinguishes it as a marvellous work. “what do you know further concerning her?” i asked. “tell me all—for she was my friend.”
“about a year before we went to live at enghien, near paris, mrs murray died. then her father let wichenford place to an american, and went to australia for a sea-trip, leaving ella in charge of an old aunt who lived in london. i saw her once, at her aunt’s house in porchester terrace. she was very unhappy, and when i asked her the reason she told me in bitter tears that she loved a man who adored her in return. she would not tell me the man’s name, but only said that her father and her aunt were compelling her to marry a wealthy elderly man who was odious, and whom she hated. poor little ella! i pitied her, and tried to comfort her, but it was quite useless, for that very evening her father, who was then back in london, compelled her to go out and meet her secret lover and give him his congé. who he was or what became of him i do not know. i only know that she loved him as dearly as any woman has ever loved a man—poor little ella!”
i stood before her motionless, listening to those words. was this true? had fate any further shaft of bitterness to thrust into my already broken heart?
“miss miller!” i managed to exclaim, in a very low voice i fear, “what you tell me is utterly astounding. you know the man who loved ella murray. he was none other than myself—i who loved her, ay better than my own life—i who received that dismissal from the sweet lips that i so adored—the lips that i now know were compelled to lie to me.”
“you—mr leaf!” she cried. “impossible. you were actually ella’s secret lover!”
“ah, yes! god alone knows how i have suffered all these years,” i said, half-choked. “you were her friend, miss miller, therefore you will forgive me if even to-day i wear my heart upon my sleeve. you will say, perhaps, that i am foolish, yet when a man loves a woman honestly, as i did, and he craves for affection and happiness, the catastrophe of parting is a very severe one—often more so to the man than to the woman. but,” i added quickly, “pardon me, i am talking to you as though you were as old as myself. you, at your age, have never experienced the bitterness of a blighted love.”
“unfortunately i have,” she answered, in a low, trembling voice. “i, too, loved once—and only once. but, alas! after a few short weeks of affection, of a bliss that i thought would last always, the man i loved was cruelly snatched from me for ever.” and she sighed and tears welled in her fine eyes, as she looked aimlessly straight before her—her mind filled with painful recollections.
she told me no more, and left me wondering at the secret love romance that, to my great surprise, seemed to have already hardened her young heart.
every girl, even in her school years, has her own little affair of the heart, generally becoming hopelessly infatuated with some man much her senior, who is in ignorance of the burning he is awakening within the girlish breast. but hers was, i distinguished, a real serious affection, one which, like my own, had ended in black grief and tragedy.
but she had told me one truth—a ghastly truth. i had misjudged my dear dead love! she had still loved me—she had still been mine—in heart my own!
