"But I can't," she declared. "That's just it. I only wish I could rid myself of this horrible feeling of insecurity."

"We are perfectly secure," I a.s.sured her. "My enemies are now aware that I'm quite wide awake." And in a few brief sentences I explained my curious meeting with the Frenchman Delanne.

The instant I described him--his stout body, his grey pointed beard, his gold pince-nez, his amethyst ring--she sat staring at me, white to the lips.

"Why," she gasped, "I know! The description is exact. And--and you say he saw my father in Manchester! He actually rode away in the same cab as Reckitt! Impossible! You must have dreamt it all, Owen."

"No, dearest," I said quite calmly. "It all occurred just as I have repeated it to you."

"And he really entered the taxi with Reckitt? He said, too, that he knew my father--eh?"

"He did."

She held her breath. Her eyes were staring straight before her, her breath came and went quickly, and she gripped the wooden post to steady herself, for she swayed forward suddenly, and I stretched out my hand, fearing lest she should fall.

What I had told her seemed to stagger her. It revealed something of intense importance to her--something which, to me, remained hidden.

It was still a complete enigma.

CHAPTER TWENTY

THE STRANGER IN THE RUE DE RIVOLI

From Scarborough we had gone up to the Highlands, spending a fortnight at Grantown, a week at Blair Atholl, returning south through Callander and the Trossachs--one of the most glorious autumns I had ever spent.

Ours was now a peaceful, uneventful life, careless of the morrow, and filled with perfect love and concord. I adored my young beautiful wife, and I envied no man.

I had crushed down all feelings of misgivings that had hitherto so often arisen within me, for I felt confident in Sylvia's affection.

She lived only for me, possessing me body and soul.

Not a pair in the whole of England loved each other with a truer or more fervent pa.s.sion. Our ideas were identical, and certainly I could not have chosen a wife more fitted for me--even though she rested beneath such a dark cloud of suspicion.

I suppose some who read this plain statement of fact will declare me to have been a fool. But to such I would reply that in your hearts the flame of real love has never yet burned. You may have experienced what you have fondly believed to have been love--a faint flame that has perhaps flickered for a time and, dying out, has long been forgotten.

Only if you have really loved a woman--loved her with that all-consuming pa.s.sion that arises within a man once in his whole lifetime when he meets his affinity, can you understand why I made Sylvia my wife.

I had the car brought up to meet us in Perth, and with it Sylvia and I had explored all the remotest beauties of the Highlands. We ran up as far north as Inverness, and around to Oban, delighting in all the beauties of the heather-clad hills, the wild moors, the autumn-tinted glades, and the broad unruffled lochs. Afterwards we went round the Trossachs and motored back to London through Carlisle, the Lakes, North Wales and the Valley of the Wye, the most charming of all motor-runs in England.

Afterwards, Sylvia wanted to do some shopping, and we went over to Paris for ten days. There, while at the Meurice, her father, who chanced to be pa.s.sing through Paris on his way from Brussels to Lyons, came unexpectedly one evening and dined with us in our private salon.

Pennington was just as elegant and epicurean as ever. He delighted in the dinner set before him, the hotel, of course, being noted for its cooking.

That evening we were a merry trio. I had not seen my father-in-law since the morning of our marriage, when I had called, and found him confined to his bed. Therefore we had both a lot to relate to him regarding our travels.

"I, too, have been moving about incessantly," he remarked, as he poised his wine-gla.s.s in his hand, regarding the colour of its contents. "I was in Petersburg three weeks ago. I'm interested in some telegraph construction works there. We've just secured a big Government contract to lay a new line across Siberia."

"I've written to you half-a-dozen times," remarked his daughter, "but you never replied."

"I've never had your letters, child," he said. "Where did you address them?"

"Two I sent to the Travellers' Club, here. Another I sent to the Hotel de France, in Petersburg."

"Ah! I was at the Europe," he laughed. "I find their cooking better.

Their sterlet is even better than the Hermitage at Moscow. Jules, the chef, was at Cubat's, in the Nevski, for years."

Pennington always gauged a hotel by the excellence of its chef. He told us of tiny obscure places in Italy which he knew, where the rooms were carpetless and comfortless, but where the cooking could vie with the Savoy or Carlton in London. He mentioned the Giaponne in Leghorn, the Tazza d'Oro in Lucca, and the Vapore in Venice, of all three of which I had had experience, and I fully corroborated what he said. He was a man who ate his strawberries with a quarter of a liqueur-gla.s.s of maraschino thrown over them, and a slight addition of pepper, and he always mixed his salads himself.

"Perhaps you think me very whimsical," he laughed across the table, "but really, good cooking makes so much difference to life."

I told him that, as an Englishman, I preferred plainly-cooked food.

"Which is usually heavy and indigestible, I fear," he declared. "What, now, could be more indigestible than our English roast beef and plum pudding--eh?"

My own thoughts were, however, running in an entirely different channel, and when presently Sylvia, who looked a delightful picture in ivory chiffon, and wearing the diamond necklet I had given her as one of her wedding presents, rose and left us to our cigars, I said suddenly--

"I say, Pennington, do you happen to know a stout, grey-bearded Frenchman who wears gold-rimmed gla.s.ses--a man named Pierre Delanne?"

"Delanne?" he repeated. "No, I don't recollect the name."

"I saw him in Manchester," I exclaimed. "He was at the Midland, and said he knew you--and also Sylvia."

"In Manchester! Was he at the Midland while I was there?"

"Yes. He was dressed in black, with a silk hat and wore on his finger a great amethyst ring--a rather vulgar-looking ornament."

Pennington's lips were instantly pressed together.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, almost with a start, "I think I know who you mean. His beard is pointed, and his eyes rather small and shining. He has the air of a bon-vivant, and speaks English extremely well. He wears the amethyst on the little finger of his left hand."

"Exactly."

"And, to you, he called himself Pierre Delanne, eh?"

"Yes. What is his real name, then?"

"Who knows? I've heard that he uses half-a-dozen different aliases,"

replied my father-in-law.

"Then you know him?"

"Well--not very well," was Pennington's response in a rather strange voice, I thought. "Did he say anything regarding myself?"

"Only that he had seen you in Manchester."

"When did you see him last?"