"Ah! if I could tell you all--if I only dared to tell you," she sighed.

"But even then you wouldn't believe it--you couldn't."

"But may I not know something of this peril of yours?" I urged. "If you tell me, I shall then know how to deal with it."

"You can only serve me at great risk to yourself," was her quick reply.

"In any way I can serve you, Lolita, do not hesitate to command me," I said, deeply in earnest and still holding her trembling hand in mine.

By that wild look in her beautiful eyes I saw that her heart was gripped by some nameless terror, and that she was in desperation. Then, in a moment of deep sympathy, recollecting the stranger's ominous words, I added: "I love you now, Lolita, with the deepest devotion with which any man has loved."

And before she was aware of it, I had raised those thin white fingers reverently to my lips and imprinted upon them a tender lingering kiss.

CHAPTER THREE.

WHICH IS A MYSTERY.

In my hot pa.s.sionate declaration I repeated my readiness to serve her, at the same time acknowledging the difference in our stations and the fear that my dream of happiness must be a vain one.

She smiled very sweetly upon me, and I saw her eyes were dimmed with tears. Her lips moved, but in the first moments no sound escaped them.

I had taken her by surprise, I think, for she had always regarded me as friend, and not as lover.

"I thank you for your kind promise to a.s.sist me in this hour of my need," she answered at last in a voice that seemed to have strangely altered. "I know now that I enjoy your regard, although I--well, I must confess that I had no idea that, good friends that we have been all these years, you would end by really falling in love with me. You have, however, told me the truth, and a woman always respects a man for that.

I know now that I have at least one firm and devoted friend." And as she spoke her fingers closed upon my hand.

As I feared, I had presumed too far. I had no right to love her, I, a mere paid servant of the family, yet she had treated my confession with sweet dignity and womanly tact that so well became her, and cleverly turned my declaration of love into one of friendship.

"To serve me in this matter would be to imperil yourself," she went on in deep seriousness after a moment's pause. "My enemies hold my future in their hands. To me it is a matter of life or death."

"I am prepared to undertake any risk for your sake," I declared. "Only suggest a course, and I will adopt it instantly."

"Ah, you are very good!" she cried. "How can I sufficiently thank you?

In all the world you are the only friend I can really trust. Well, what I want you to do is this. Take the first train to London to-morrow and go to 98, Britten Street, Chelsea, where you will find a certain Frenchwoman named Lejeune. Tell her that I have sent you to implore her to tell me the truth; that if she fears to approach me direct you will act as intermediary; that if she withholds the secret it must result in my death--my death--you understand."

"In your death!" I gasped, puzzled.

"Yes. I cannot face exposure. I would prefer death!" was her hoa.r.s.e reply. "Tell that woman that Richard Keene has returned! She will know." I watched her face and recognised how desperate she was. I had never before seen such a look in any woman's eyes.

"And what else?" I asked mechanically.

"Nothing. All you have to do in order to save me is to get a written confession from that woman. If she refuses, as I fear she will, then my fate is sealed. The blow I have been dreading these past years will fall. I shall be crushed, and Lolita Sibberton will be but the memory of an unhappy woman who fell the victim of as foul and ingenious a plot as was ever conceived by the mind of man." Her hands were clasped before her, and she shivered from head to foot. I saw that she was cold, and without a word wound about her bare neck my scarf that lay upon a chair.

"I will do my utmost in your interests," I a.s.sured her. "This woman--is she one of the conspirators?"

"Beware of her. She is treacherous, unscrupulous, and possessed of a cunning that is almost beyond comprehension. Act with discretion, and exercise every care of your own personal safety."

"Why? I have no fear in London in broad daylight," I smiled.

"Ah! You don't know," she cried. "In dealing with her, you are dealing with a person who would hesitate at nothing in order to attain her own ends. Until now, although a word from her could give me my freedom from this imminent danger that threatens to overtake me, she has kept silence and watched for my downfall."

"I will compel her to confess," I cried fiercely. "If it is within human power to save you, Lolita, I will do so. Trust me, because I love you."

She sighed, and again her eyes were dimmed by tears.

"And if you hear strange tales about me, certain allegations of-- shameful stories, I mean--you will believe none of them till you have proof--will you?" she urged breathlessly, with a deep anxiety in her voice.

"No," I promised. "I will not. To me, Lolita, you are innocent, pure and good, just as when we were boy and girl together." And again I placed her finger-tips to my lips as seal of my allegiance to the one woman who was all the world to me.

At that instant there came a tap at the door, and I was compelled to drop her hand instantly.

Slater, the aged, white-whiskered butler, opened the door, saying in his squeaky voice--

"His lordship would like to see you, m'lady, in the library before sending a telegram--at once, if convenient."

"I'll be there in a moment," she answered, without turning towards the man to reveal her face. Then, when Slater had gone, she rushed to the small mirror and with her handkerchief quickly removed all traces of her tears.

"George is worrying about Marigold being alone at Aix-les-Bains," she remarked. "I'm rather surprised he let her go. If I were a man with a young and pretty wife, I shouldn't let her far out of my sight. But Marigold, I suppose, isn't an ordinary woman."

Her last sentence was indeed correct. All the world knew that the young Countess of Stanchester was the gayest and giddiest of the ultra-smart set in which she moved, and that after two years of marriage she had developed into one of the most popular and unconventional Society hostesses. The young Earl was not exactly happy--that I knew--and Lolita was usually his adviser regarding his purely domestic affairs.

Therefore, as she hurriedly put the finishing-touches to her countenance with that dexterity which a woman only possesses, she turned to me and again grasped my hand, saying--

"What I have said to-night, Willoughby, you will regard as strictly confidential. Act as I have suggested, and," she added with a catch in her voice, "remember that you alone stand between myself--and death?"

"I promise," I said. And opening the door, I bowed before her as she swept out, her silks swishing down the long corridor.

I closed the door again and flung myself back into my chair, utterly mystified by those fateful words. She had a secret, one that she was prepared to keep even at cost of her own life. To me, although she had not admitted that she reciprocated my love, she had entrusted her life.

Yes. I would force the mysterious Frenchwoman into confession, whoever she was. The thought of my love's peril roused me to action, and I seated myself at my table and set to work clearing off those letters that lay heaped up unanswered.

The clock on the stables had chimed midnight before I threw down my pen, locked my drawers, and slipping on my overcoat strolled through the silent house along to the great hall, where a footman in the bright blue and gold Stanchester livery let me out into the still, balmy night.

After the warmth of my room, the air was refreshing, and as I walked on down the dark avenue towards the village, the silence was complete save for the cry of an owl and the distant barking of the hounds in the Earl's celebrated kennels situated about a mile away. Where the trees met overhead the darkness was intense, but so often did I return home after nightfall that I knew every inch of the way.

Still pondering deeply upon my strange conversation with Lolita, I strode forward without any thought of time or place, and utterly oblivious to everything, until of a sudden I was aroused by hearing a woman's loud, piercing shriek.

I halted on the instant and listened. I judged the sound to be about a hundred yards to the left, in the darkness. After a few seconds it was repeated.

The cry was Lolita's! Of that I felt absolutely convinced.

Without a moment's hesitation I rushed forward, but in the cavernous blackness could discern nothing. I halted and listened, but beyond the hooting of the owl could discern no sound of any movement among that treble row of giant beeches.

At first I tried to convince myself that those cries of distress were merely heard in my imagination, yet they were, alas! too tangible and distinct. For a full quarter of an hour I lingered there, straining eyes and ears, but all in vain.

Then, with a resolve to take the man Warr into my confidence and invoke his aid to make a search, I rushed forward to the village, awakened him, and we both returned with lanterns as quickly as we could, and began to make a methodical examination of the spot whence I had believed the sounds emanated.

I learned from Warr one very curious fact, namely, that he had been unable to go up to the Hall to deliver the letter, and it was still in his possession. It therefore seemed as though Lolita had caught sight of the stranger's face as he peered forth from the tap-room window, and by that means knew of his unwelcome return.

For an hour we searched diligently both within the avenue and outside it, until of a sudden a cry from Warr caused my heart to leap.

"Good Heavens! Mr Woodhouse!" he gasped, bending to a clump of long gra.s.s in a deep hollow behind the huge gnarled trunk of one of the great oaks. "Come and look here!"