The Mysterious Mr. Miller Part 24

The roads traversing the highway were merely green lanes leading to adjoining fields, and with high hedges on either side were admirably adapted for a secret meeting.

Not without fear of being noticed by some yokel on his way to work, I idled there until the clock from the old ivy-clad church tower below struck the hour. For the first ten minutes I saw no sign of her, and every moment increased my peril of being noticed and my presence commented upon. The villagers were certainly not used to seeing a gentleman wait at the cross-roads at six o'clock in the morning.

Presently, however, my heart leaped with sudden joy, for I saw her in a fresh pale blue cotton dress hurrying towards me, and in order not to be seen meeting her in the main road I withdrew into the lane.

Five minutes later we were standing side by side, in a spot where we could not be observed, she panting and breathless, and I full of eager questions as to the reason of her flight.

"So you actually followed me all the way here, G.o.dfrey!" she exclaimed anxiously, turning those dear eyes upon me, those eyes the expression of which was always as wondering and innocent as a child's.

"Because I am determined that you shall not again escape me, Ella," was my answer, grasping her hand and raising it with reverence to my lips.

Are we ever truly read, I wonder, save by the one that loves us best?

Love is blind, the phrase runs; yet, I would rather say Love sees as G.o.d sees, and with infinite wisdom has infinite pardon.

What was it I felt? I hardly know. I acted without knowing--only stung into a bitter, burning, all-corroding jealousy that drove me like a whip of scorpions.

"You should never have done this," she answered calmly, though her voice trembled just a little. "Have I not already told you that--that our meeting was unfortunate, and that we must again part?"

"But why?" I demanded fiercely.

"It is imperative," she faltered. "I can never be yours."

"But you shall--Ella!" I cried fiercely, "in this past twenty-four hours I have discovered a great deal. Unknown to me there was a man staying with Miller at Studland. The real object of your visit there was to speak with him in secret. You did so and left by motor car, while he travelled here by train. Your father has no idea that he and Miller are friends nor has he any idea of his true ident.i.ty. He believes him to be Gordon-Wright, yet I know him under the name of Lieutenant Harold Shacklock."

"You--you know him?" she gasped.

"Yes. After you left the Manor I called, and Lucie introduced me--as though I needed any introduction to him," I laughed bitterly.

"Then where have you met him before?" she asked, deeply anxious.

"Abroad. I know who and what he is, Ella," I said determinedly. "And you shall never be his wife."

"But I must," she declared. "It is all arranged. I cannot break my engagement. I dare not."

"Then I shall simply go to the police and tell them what I know. I will never allow you to wreck your happiness because this fellow holds some mysterious power over you. You are mine, Ella--remember--mine!"

"I know! I know!" she gasped, her face pale, her eyes terrified. "But you must not say a word. I beg you, if you really love me, not to say a word."

"Why not?"

"Because he would revenge himself upon me. I know certain of his secrets--secrets that I discovered by the merest chance. Any information given to the police he would suspect of coming from me.

Therefore, don't you see that any such attempt to free me will only bring upon me disaster--even death!"

"You fear he may take your life!" I gasped. "Ah! I see! He might even kill you, in order to close your lips!"

And I recollected the fellow's ominous words I had overheard on the previous night, when he had told her that upon her secrecy his very life depended.

He was as ingenious and unscrupulous a criminal as there was in the whole length and breadth of the kingdom.

I saw in what deadly peril was my sweet well-beloved. She was in fear of him. Perhaps he, on his part, held some secret of hers. From her att.i.tude I suspected this. If so, then any word of mine to the police would bring to her only ruin and disgrace!

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

CHILDREN OF CIRc.u.mSTANCE.

Was any man more pitiful, more foolish, more pathetically lonely, more grotesquely fooled by Fate than I?

Was all the world a lie?

Upon the face of my love was a trouble that for once clouded its wondrous beauty. I tried to touch her hair, but she avoided me by a gesture that made me shrink a little.

The years, the tranquil sorrow of my late life dropped from me; I became again only the fierce, fearless, thoughtless lover; the man who had walked with her and adored her beside that summer sea so long ago.

A madness of determination came to me. At all hazards she should be mine. Shacklock was a liar and a schemer, a thief and an adventurer. I would bear witness against him, even at risk of the vendetta which would inevitably fall upon me.

She saw my changed face, and for the first time clung to me.

"G.o.dfrey!" she whispered hoa.r.s.ely, "have pity upon me, and remain silent. Any word from you must reflect upon myself."

"I will not allow you to make this self-sacrifice," I cried fiercely.

"Remember Blumenthal."

"It was for my father's sake," she replied. "To save him."

"And now?"

She did not answer for several moments. Then in a low voice broken by emotion she said:--

"To save myself."

"But it is madness!" I cried. "In what manner can you be in the power of such a man? You surely know what he is?"

"Alas! I do--too well. If he had one grain of sympathy or feeling he would surely release me."

"And your father approves of this shameful engagement?"

"He does, because he is ignorant of the truth."

"Then I will tell him," I said. "You shall never fall into that man's hands. I love you, Ella--I love you with all the strength of my being-- with all my soul. If you are beneath the thrall of this adventurer, it is my duty to extricate you."

"Ah! you can't--you can't," she cried. "If you only could, how gladly would I welcome freedom--freedom to love you, G.o.dfrey!" and she clung to me tremblingly. "But it is all a vague dream of the unattainable," she went on. "My whole life is on fire with shame, and my whole soul is sick with falsehood. Between your life and mine, G.o.dfrey, there is a deep gulf fixed. I lied to you long ago--lied to save my dear father from ruin, and you have forgiven. And now--Oh! G.o.d! I shudder as I think--my life will be alone, all alone always."

I held her trembling hand in silence, and saw the tears streaming down her white cheeks. I could utter no word. What she had said thrust home to me the bitter truth that she must bow to that man's will, even though I stood firm and valiant as her champion. My defiance would only mean her ruin.

I had met my love again only to lose her in that unfathomable sea of plot and mystery.

All the dark past, those years of yearning and black bitterness, came back to me. I had thought her dead, and lived with her sweet tender remembrance ever with me. Yet in future I should know that she lived, the wife of an adventurer, suffering a good woman's martyrdom.

My heart grew sick with dread and longing. Again I would mourn the dead indeed; dead days, dead love. It pressed upon my life like lead. What beauty now would the daybreak smile on me? What fragrance would the hillside bear for me as I roamed again the face of Europe?