In an instant I drew up speechless, aghast, amazed. The mystery was absolutely dumbfounding.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

"IT IS HIS!"

The figure before me was that of a woman, calm, sweet-faced, her countenance rendered piquant by its expression of surprise.

It was none other than Mabel Anson.

Dressed in a tight-fitting tailor-made gown of some dark cloth, and a neat toque, she looked dignified and altogether charming. The slight severity of attire became her well, for it showed her marvellous figure to perfection, while the dash of red in her hat gave the necessary touch of colour to complete a tasteful effect. Her countenance was concealed by the thinnest of gauze veils, and as she held forth her well-gloved hand with an expression of pleasure at the unexpected meeting, her bangles jingled musically.

"This is indeed a most pleasant surprise, Miss Anson," I said, when I recovered speech, for so sudden had been our encounter that in the moment of my astonishment my tongue refused to utter a sound.

"And to me also," she laughed.

"I've been wondering and wondering when we should meet again," I blurted forth. "I'm so very glad to see you."

For the first few moments after she had allowed her tiny hand to rest for an instant in mine we exchanged conventionalities, and then suddenly, noting a roll of music in her hand, I asked--

"Are you going home?"

"Yes, across the Park," she laughed. "Mother forbids it, but I much prefer the Park to those stuffy omnibuses."

"And you've been to your music, I suppose?" I inquired.

"Yes. I've not been well for the past few days, and have missed several lessons. Now, like a good pupil, I'm endeavouring to make them up, you know." And she laughed merrily.

"How many times a week do you go to the Academy?" I asked, surprised that she should have gone there that day, after what the hall-porter had told me.

"Twice, as a general rule," she remarked; "but just now I'm rather irregular."

"And so you prefer to cross the Park rather than ride by omnibus?"

"Certainly. Mother doesn't approve of girls riding on the tops of 'buses, and says it's fast. Therefore I'd much rather walk, for at this hour half London seems to be going from Piccadilly Circus to Hammersmith. I go right across, past the Serpentine, through Kensington Gardens to the Broad Walk, and out by the small gate next the _Palace Hotel_," she added, with a sweep of her gloved hand.

Her eyes were lovely. As she stood there in the fading sunlight she seemed the fairest vision I had ever seen. I stood spell-bound by her marvellous beauty.

"And may I not act as your escort on your walk to-day?" I asked.

"Certainly. I have no objection," she answered with graceful dignity, therefore I turned and walked beside her, carrying her music.

We took the road, which leads straight away to the Magazine, and crosses the Serpentine beyond. There in the yellow glow of the October sunset I lounged at her side and drank my fill of her loveliness. Surely, I thought, there could be no more beautiful woman in all the world. The Colonel's strange warning recurred to me, but I laughed it to scorn.

As we pa.s.sed beneath the rustling trees the sun's last rays lit up her beautiful face with a light that seemed ethereal and tipped her hair until there seemed a golden halo about her. I was no lovesick youth, be it remembered, but a man who had had a bitter experience of the world and its suffering. Yet at that hour I was fascinated by the grace of her superb carriage, the suppleness of her figure, the charm of her sweet smile, and the soft music of her voice as she chatted to me.

She told me of her love for music; and from the character of the pieces which formed her studies I knew that she must be a musician of a no mean order. The operatic melody which she had sung at the Colonel's was, she declared, a mere trifle. We discussed the works of Rossini and Ma.s.sent, of Wagner and Mendelssohn, and of Verdi, Puccini, Mascagni, Perosi, and such latter-day composers. I had always prided myself that I knew something of music, but her knowledge was far deeper than mine.

And so we gossiped on, crossing the Park and entering Kensington Gardens--those beautiful pleasure grounds that always seem so neglected by the majority of Londoners--while the sun sank and disappeared in its blood-red afterglow. She spoke of her life abroad, declaring that she loved London and was always pleased to return to its wild, turbulent life. She had spent some time in Paris, in Vienna, in Berlin, but no one was half as interesting, she declared, as London.

"But you are not a Londoner, are you?" I asked.

"No, not exactly," she responded, "although I've lived here such a long time that I've become almost a c.o.c.kney. Are you a Londoner?"

"No," I answered; "I'm a countryman, born and bred."

"I heard the Colonel remark that other night that you had been afflicted by blindness for some time. Is that so?"

I responded in the affirmative.

"Terrible!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, glancing at me with those wonderful dark eyes of hers that seemed to hold me in fascination and look me through and through. "We who possess our eyesight cannot imagine the great disadvantages under which the blind are placed. How fortunate that you are cured!"

"Yes," I explained. "The cure is little short of a miracle. The three greatest oculists in London all agreed that I was incurable, yet there one day came to me a man who said he could give me back my sight. I allowed him to experiment, and he was successful. From the day that I could see plainly he, curiously enough, disappeared."

"How strange! Did he never come and see you afterwards?"

"No. He took no reward, but simply discontinued his visits. I do not even know his real name."

"How extraordinary!" she observed, greatly interested. "I really believe that there is often more romance and mystery in real life than in books. Such a circ.u.mstance appears absolutely bewildering."

"If to you, Miss Anson, then how much more to me! I, who had relinquished all hope of again looking upon the world and enjoying life, now find myself actually in possession of my vision and able to mix with my fellow-men. Place yourself for a moment in my position, and try to imagine my constant thankfulness."

"You must feel that a new life is opened to you--that you have begun a fresh existence," she observed with a true touch of sympathy in her sweet voice. Then she added, as if by afterthought. "How many of us would be glad to commence life afresh!"

The tone in which she uttered that sentence seemed incongruous. A few moments before she had been all brightness and gaiety, but in those words there vibrated a distinctly gloomy note.

"Surely you do not desire to commence your life again?" I said.

She sighed slightly.

"All of us have our burden of regrets," she answered vaguely, raising her eyes for an instant to mine, and then lowering them.

We appeared in those moments to grow confidential. The crimson and orange was fast fading from the sky. It was growing dark beneath the shadow of the great elms, and already the line of street lamps out in Kensington Gore were twinkling through the foliage on our left. No one was in the vicinity, and we were walking very slowly, for, truth to tell, I desired to delay our parting until the very last moment. Of all the leafy spots in giant London, there is none so rural, so romantic, or so picturesque in summer as that portion of Kensington Gardens lying between Queen's Gate and the Broad Walk. Save for the dull roar of distant traffic, one might easily fancy one's self far in the country, a hundred miles from the sound of Bow Bells.

"But you are young, Miss Anson," I observed philosophically, after a brief pause. "And if I may be permitted to say so, you have scarcely begun to live your life. Yet you actually wish to commence afresh!"

"Yes," she responded briefly, "I do. Strange, is it not?"

"Is the past, then, so full of bitterness?" I asked, the Colonel's strange warning recurring to me at the same moment.

"Its bitterness is combined with regrets," she answered huskily, in a low voice.

"But you, young, bright, happy, and talented, who need not think of the trials of everyday life, should surely have no regrets so deep as to cause you this anxiety and despair," I said, with a feeling of tenderness. "I am ten years older than you, therefore I may be permitted to speak like this, even though my words may sound presumptuous."

"Continue," she exclaimed. "I a.s.sure you that in my present position I appreciate any words of sympathy."

"You have my deepest sympathy, Miss Anson; of that I a.s.sure you," I declared, detecting in her words a desire to confide in me. "If at your age you already desire to recommence life, your past cannot have been a happy one."

"It has been far from happy," she answered in a strange, mechanical voice. "Sometimes I think that I am the unhappiest woman in all the world."