The Mysterious Mr. Miller Part 29

"And your father went on from Pisa?" I said at last, turning to my neat-waisted little companion. "He did not come home with you?"

"No. He has some urgent business down in Rome, and sent me back here to wait for him."

"When does he arrive?"

"He does not know. His business is very uncertain always. Sometimes when he goes away he's absent only three days, and at other times three months. Dear old dad is awfully tiresome. He never writes, and Marietta and I wait and wait, and wonder what's become of him."

"Is he staying with friends in Rome?"

"With Dr Gavazzi, a great friend of ours."

"You left Studland very suddenly," I said.

"Because of a telegram. We left at once, with hardly an hour to pack up. But how did you know we had gone to Italy?"

"I called after you had left, and your aunt told me. I wanted to speak to you, Miss Miller," I added, turning to her seriously. "I came here to Leghorn purposely to see you."

"It's surely a long way to travel," she said, turning her soft dark eyes upon mine and regarding me with wonder.

"Yes. But the reason I am here is to consult you regarding something which very closely concerns myself--regarding Ella."

"Ah! It was strange that she left us so suddenly," she remarked, "and stranger still the events of that night. I wonder who attacked her?

She recognised her a.s.sailant, otherwise she would have said something to me. I've thought over it several times. The whole thing is an utter enigma. She evidently left us because she feared that her a.s.sailant would either call to see her, or perhaps make another attempt upon her."

"Then she said nothing to you?"

"Absolutely not a word, even though when she came in she was half fainting. I naturally concluded that you and she had had some words, and therefore I made no inquiry."

"We had no words, Miss Miller," I said, in a low, serious voice. "Our hearts were too full of tragedy for that."

"Of tragedy?" she cried. "What do you mean?"

"Ella is already engaged to be married."

"Engaged?" she cried. "Why, I thought she was to be yours? I was congratulating you both!"

"No," I answered, my heart sinking. "Though we have come together again after that long blank in both our lives, we are yet held apart by a cruel circ.u.mstance. She is already engaged to be married to another man."

"But she will break it, never fear. Ella loves you--you can't doubt that."

"I know. I know that. But it is an engagement she cannot break. She will be that man's wife in a month."

"You absolutely amaze me. She told me nothing of this, but on the contrary led me to believe that she was still free, and that you were to be her affianced husband."

"There is some reason--some secret reason why I cannot be," I said. "It was to discuss this point with you that I have travelled from London. I must ask you to forgive me, Miss Miller, for troubling you with my private affairs, but you are, you know, Ella's most intimate and most devoted friend."

"You are not troubling me in the least," my companion declared. "We are friends, you and I, and if I can help you, I will with pleasure do so."

"Then I want to ask you a few questions," I said eagerly. "First, tell me how long you have known Mr Gordon-Wright?"

"Oh! ever since I was quite a little girl. He used to give me francs and buy me bon-bons long ago in the old days in Paris. Why?"

"Because I had an idea that he might perhaps be a new acquaintance."

"Oh, dear no. My father and he have been friends for many years. He comes here to stay, sometimes for a couple of months at a time. He has bad health, and his London doctor often orders him abroad."

"Who is he?"

"A gentleman. He was in the Navy on the China station, I think. He's a most amusing companion, full of droll anecdotes, and seems to know everybody. Dad says that he's one of the most popular men about London.

He has a splendid steam yacht and once or twice he has taken us for cruises. It was in port here for a week at the beginning of the year."

"Where does he live?"

"In Half Moon Street in London."

"Has he a country place?"

"I never heard of it."

Then she was unaware, I saw, that he lived on the Cornish border. Her father, of course, knew the truth, and kept it concealed from her. The fact that he came there to hide for months at a time, and that he travelled about in a steam yacht were sufficient to show that he was one of the clever and ingenious band who had, during the past ten years, effected certain _coups_ so gigantic that they had startled Europe.

"When I met him how long had he been staying with you at the Manor?"

"Only one day. He came on the previous morning, and he left an hour after you did. He wished to consult my father about something--some securities he contemplates purchasing, I think."

"Was Ella acquainted with him?"

"No. Ella never saw him. He was upstairs in his room, you remember, when we brought her home, and she left in the morning before he was up."

"You don't think that it was he who met her in the park after she left me?" I suggested.

She looked at me strangely, as though endeavouring to read my innermost thoughts.

"No, I hardly think that. Why should he, of all men, attack a woman who was a perfect stranger to him?"

"But was Ella a perfect stranger?" I queried. "How do you know that?"

"Of course we can't say so. He might have met her somewhere else before," the dark-eyed girl was forced to admit.

"Do not the circ.u.mstances all point to the fact that she fled, fearing to face him?" I said.

"Well, it certainly is a theory--but a very strange one," she answered, her eyes fixed thoughtfully away to the distant horizon. "But what you have told me is so extraordinary. Ella is engaged to be married in a month. To whom? You have not told me that."

I was silent for a moment, wondering whether I should tell her. So complete were the confidences now between us that I saw I need conceal nothing from her. We entertained a mutual sympathy for each other--I broken and despairing, and she a woman with the mark of fate upon her countenance.

"She is to marry Gordon-Wright," I said in a low, hard voice.

"Gordon-Wright!" she gasped, drawing back and staring at me open-mouthed. "Ella to marry that man! Impossible!"