"The fellow is compelling her to become his wife. He holds her in his power by some mysterious bond which she fears to break. She is in terror of him. Ella--my own Ella--is that man's victim."

"But--but you mustn't allow this, Mr Leaf!" she cried quickly, and from the anxious expression in her countenance I saw that my announcement had struck her a-heap in amazement. "Ella must never marry him!" she added.

"But are you sure of this--are you quite sure?"

"She had admitted it to me with her own lips."

"Then she must be warned--she cannot know."

"Know what?"

"Know the facts that are known to me. She is in ignorance, or she would never consent to become that man's wife!"

"She has been entrapped. She admitted as much." My companion made no answer. Her brows were knit in thought. What I had revealed to her was both unexpected and puzzling. She evidently knew Gordon-Wright's true character, though it was hardly likely she would admit it to me.

Yet I wondered, as I had lately very often wondered, whether she were actually in ignorance of her father's true profession.

"If she has been entrapped, Mr Leaf," she said slowly, "then she must find a way in which to extricate herself. We must never allow her to become that man's wife."

"He is your father's friend, and yet you hold him in little esteem?" I remarked.

"What I know is my own affair," was her hard response. "It is sufficient for us to say that Ella is yours, and must be yours."

"Ah! yes," I sighed in despair, "if only she could be. Yet I fear that it is impossible. This fellow for some mysterious reason holds her future in his hands. She refuses to reveal anything to me, except that to break away from him is impossible. Indeed, the real reason of her flying visit to you at Studland was to consult him. She knew he was visiting there, and slipped away from her father in order to call upon you."

"But we had no idea that they were acquainted," Lucie declared.

"After she had gone to bed your father and Gordon-Wright remained up, talking, she crept back downstairs, I believe, and overheard their conversation."

"She did!" she gasped, her cheeks going pale. "She heard what they said! Are you quite sure of this?"

"Yes."

"Then--then she really came to spy upon Gordon-Wright--to spy upon us indeed!"

"Not with any sinister motive," I hastened to a.s.sure her. "She is evidently endeavouring to discover something concerning this man who holds her so utterly powerless in his hands. It is but natural, is it not? It is only what you or I would do in similar circ.u.mstances."

My companion's face had changed. She was pale and anxious, eager to learn all that I had ascertained.

"She told you this--how she had overheard my father talking to him?"

"No, Gordon-Wright himself charged her with eaves-dropping--and she admitted it."

"Ah! Then if this be true, Mr Leaf, she had better marry him."

"Marry him!" I cried. "Why?"

"Because I have a suspicion that she knows something concerning my father. What it is sorely puzzles me."

"I--I don't quite understand you," I said.

"Well--I thought I had spoken plainly enough," she answered. "You have told me that she admitted to him that she overheard his conversation with my father."

"Well, and what if she did?" I asked. "Was the consultation between your father and his friend of such a secret nature?"

She hesitated a moment, then lifting her eyes to mine, said:--

"I believe it was."

"You believe," I echoed. "You must know, if you are prepared to sacrifice Ella to that man!"

"He probably is in possession of some secret of hers," she remarked slowly.

"And she on her part, it appears, is in possession of some secret of his."

"And of my father's."

"What is it she knows?" I asked. "Come, give me some hint of it," I urged. "A moment ago you were my friend, prepared to a.s.sist poor Ella to escape--yet now you declare that they must marry."

"Yes," was her hard response. "I did not know that she had acted the spy in my father's house--that she was in love with Gordon-Wright and had come to see him while he was under our roof."

"She's not in love with him," I protested. "She denies it.

Unfortunately she is his victim."

"She deceived you once, remember. Why do you still trust her?"

"Her deception was one for self-sacrifice--to save her father."

"And my refusal to a.s.sist you in saving her from Gordon-Wright is from the same motive."

"To save your father?"

"How do I know? I tell you I am puzzled."

"Then the secret is perhaps a guilty one?" I said seriously.

"She must marry this man," was all her response.

"And this from you, Miss Miller--you, who have always posed as her friend!" I exclaimed reproachfully, for her change of manner had utterly confounded me. I had relied upon her as my friend.

"I am certainly not her enemy," she hastened to a.s.sert. "To see her the wife of Gordon-Wright is my very last desire. Yet it is unfortunately imperative for--" and she stopped short, without concluding her sentence.

"For what?"

"For--well--for my peace of mind," she said, though I was sure that she had intended saying something else.

"You have already told me that this fellow is unfitted to be her husband," I exclaimed. "Surely you, her oldest friend, will never allow her to commit this fatal error--to wreck her own happiness and mine, without lifting a finger to save her. Need I repeat to you what I told you at the riverside at Studland, with what a fierce pa.s.sion I adore her, how that she is mine--my very life?"

"I know," my companion said, in a voice slightly more sympathetic. "I admit that she ought to marry you--that she is yours in heart. Yet in her secret engagement to Gordon-Wright there is a mystery which makes me suspicious."