The Mysterious Mr. Miller Part 18

"By her strange manner when she returned. She was pale and breathless, as though she had been hurrying, and although she had pinned it up I noticed that the sleeve of her blouse was torn, and that her wrist bore dark marks as though she had had a desperate struggle with some one."

"Was she attacked by some tramp or other, I wonder?" I cried, amazed.

"She refused to tell me anything save that she was rather upset. She seemed in great fear that my father should have knowledge of the affair, and made me faithfully promise not to tell him. Her hair was awry, and some of the lace at the throat was torn as though some person had seized her and tried to strangle her. Indeed, while speaking to me she placed her hand at her throat, as if it pained her. Alarmed at her appearance, I inquired what was the matter, but she would only tell me vaguely that she was not very well. I at once jumped to the conclusion that you had quarrelled."

"We certainly had no quarrel, Miss Miller," I quickly rea.s.sured her.

"Then it is evident that she was attacked by some one! Yet it is curious that, intimate friends that we are, she would tell me nothing of the incident."

"She wished to shield her a.s.sailant, perhaps," I remarked, much puzzled.

"It certainly seems so. Seeing her so pale, and believing her about to faint, I took her to the dining-room and gave her some brandy. She sipped it, and a moment afterwards burst into tears. I sat with her for nearly half an hour trying to learn the mystery of her unhappiness. I asked her quite frankly if she had quarrelled with you, but she replied in the negative. Under the light, as she sat in the dining-room, I remarked the great change in her. Her countenance was pale as death, her lips white, and her eyes bore a look of terror in them. She was undoubtedly in great fear. But of what, I am unable to tell."

"Your surmise is, no doubt, correct. She met some one unexpectedly-- some one who attacked her. I wonder who it is?"

"She was evidently followed here this evening, and was, perhaps, seen walking with you. Your conversation, as you walked down to the lodge, might have been overheard."

"Probably. But surely, Miss Miller, the incidents of last night were very remarkable ones. I followed you and I met my love. And then, just at the moment of my re-found happiness, she has gone again without a word. Indeed, when I reflect, the incidents of last night hardly seem real. I find myself doubting whether it was not all a dream, and would really hesitate to believe in its reality if you, too, had not been present--if you, too, had not seen and spoken with her."

"Yes, it is curious--very curious. I was quite as startled by her sudden appearance as you were. It is inexplicable. I, too, believed she was dead. I heard so from half a dozen people, and I can't help thinking, Mr Leaf, that there was some deep ulterior motive in spreading such a report concerning her."

"She's a mystery," I declared; "a complete mystery."

"She is--and yet do you not find her far more beautiful than in the old days? I do."

"Perhaps her beauty is fatal--like that of so many women," I sighed.

"The source of many a woman's unhappiness is to be found in her face."

"Last night tragedy was written deeply upon hers," my companion said, in a low, sympathetic voice. "I wonder what has occurred?"

I, too, wondered. Her firm refusal to allow me to kiss her upon the lips showed her either to be in deadly fear of the jealousy of another; or that she was true to the vow she had given, even though she still loved me. Yet who could be this person whom she had undoubtedly met after we had parted? Why had he attacked her? Why had she fled again so quickly? Was she in fear of some one who was still lurking in the vicinity? A sense of deadly chilliness stole over me.

The whole affair was, indeed, a mystery, yet not so utterly bewildering as were certain of the events which followed--events which were so strange and startling that they formed a problem that was for so long beyond solution.

Being so pa.s.sionately devoted to Ella I determined to follow her, demand an explanation of the attack upon her and seek to discover the ident.i.ty of her unknown lover--the man whom she had admitted to me she was to marry under compulsion.

I had risen from my chair, expressing my intention of driving into Swanage in the hope that she had not already left, when the door opened, and a dark, well-dressed man about forty, clean-shaven, having the appearance of a naval officer and dressed in a dark grey flannel suit, came forward with extended hand to my companion, wishing her good-morning.

From his easy manner I saw that he was a guest in the house, although on the previous night I had not seen him.

"Will you allow me to introduce you?" Lucie said, and next instant presented the newcomer to me as "My father's friend, Mr Gordon-Wright."

The visitor turned to take the hand I extended to him, and raised his eyes to mine.

The conventional greeting and a.s.surance of pleasure at the meeting froze upon my lips.

We had met before--under circ.u.mstances that were, to say the least, both startling and strange.

In that instant I recognised how that the mystery had deepened a thousandfold.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

WHAT HAPPENED IN THE NIGHT.

Whether the recognition had been mutual I was unable to decide.

If it had the newcomer made no sign, but extended his hand and greeted me, while I, striving to remain unconcerned, returned his welcome.

"Your father tells me he's driving over to Swanage at half-past ten, Miss Lucie. Are you coming with us?" he asked, as he lounged with his hands deep in his jacket pockets, and an after-breakfast cigarette between his lips.

"I don't think so," was her reply. "I'm lunching with the Strong girls."

"Oh, do come," urged the dark-faced man. "You'd be back before one.

You promised me yesterday that you'd drive me somewhere."

"So I will--to-morrow, perhaps."

I watched the man's thin shaven face, and looked into his grey eyes in silence. His was a countenance striking on account of its clear-cut features, its mobile mouth, its high intellectual forehead, and its protruding jaws--an eminently clever, good-humoured face, and yet the expression in the eyes was, somehow, out of keeping with the rest of the countenance.

He laughed lightly, making some chaffing remarks, whereat the slight flush that arose in Lucie's cheeks told me that she was not altogether averse to his evident admiration. He was a pleasant fellow--but, nevertheless, a mystery.

His appearance there had, for two reasons, startled me. The first was because I had no idea that Miller had a male visitor, and the second was because I recognised him as a person whom I had long desired to rediscover.

The last occasion I had seen him he had called himself Lieutenant Shacklock, R.N. It was in very different circ.u.mstances. He had worn a moustache and beard, and affected a gold-rimmed monocle. His personal appearance as he stood there laughing with Lucie was, however, very different, yet those cold grey, close-set eyes were the same. They wore an expression that could never be altered or disguised.

We spoke together once or twice, and I began to feel convinced that he was unaware of our previous meeting.

"Yes," he remarked to me. "Beautiful old place this. I wonder my friend Miller doesn't live here more. If I were in his place I'm sure I'd prefer it to wandering about the Continent."

"You've been here before, I suppose?"

"Many times. Miller, when he's home, generally invites me," and then he turned to Lucie, by whom he was undoubtedly attracted. Little wonder, indeed, when one recognised how handsome she was.

I again stood silent, my eyes turned upon the spruce man's face--the face that brought back to my mind a curious and mysterious incident in my wandering life abroad.

When one travels on the Continent as I had travelled, spending years of aimless wandering and lazy idling in the halls and smoking-rooms of hotels of the first order, making pa.s.sing acquaintances of men and women of all grades and all nations, listening to music in illuminated gardens, and sometimes wandering with some fair _table-d'hote_ acquaintance beneath the stars, one meets with some queer adventures. I had met with a good many. One of them I now found myself recalling.

Three winters before I found myself, after the brilliant season at Monte Carlo, at a little sea-side resort called Nervi, which, as travellers know, is a few miles beyond Genoa, on the way to Rome. You have possibly looked out of the train and there obtained a glimpse of the blue Mediterranean beating upon its brown rocks; you have admired the splendid white villas of the Genoese merchants, and you have, probably, noticed behind the little railway station a great hotel garden, with green lawns and a splendid avenue of spreading palms.

In that garden one April night after dinner I was strolling and smoking with two men, who were friends. We had met casually in the hotel a few days before; a pleasant word or two, c.o.c.ktails in company, a proffered cigar, and we at once became acquaintances, as is the way of cosmopolitans. The elder was named Blenkap, a man of sixty, a wealthy ironmaster from Pittsburg; while Shacklock, the other, was much younger, smart, and had just retired from the Navy.

That night we wandered through the gardens to the sea, which lay like gla.s.s beneath the light of the white Italian moon, with the waves sighing softly upon the shingle. But Blenkap, after half an hour, complained of being rather unwell, and while the lieutenant went into the town to purchase some cigarettes I accompanied his friend back to the hotel.

It was then about ten o'clock, and refusing to allow me to call a doctor, the American went to his room. At two o'clock in the morning I was awakened by the night-porter, who said that number ninety-seven had asked him to call me. Hastily I dressed, and, on going along the corridor, found Blenkap in bed in a state of collapse.

"I'm very ill; the pains in my head are terrible," he whispered to me.

"Will you call a doctor--somebody who speaks English, if possible?"