Then I took out my cheque-book. It was too large to be carried in my pocket, therefore I tore out a couple of dozen or so, folded them, and placed them in an envelope.

I recognised that I could draw money with them, yet the bank need not know my whereabouts. If these people, who would, I suppose, call themselves "my friends," made active search to find the fugitive "madman," they would certainly obtain no clue from my bankers.

In the same drawer as the cheque-book I found a black leather portfolio, securely locked.

The latter fact impressed me. Everything else was open to my secretary, who possessed keys, both to writing-table and safe. But this was locked, apparently because therein were contained certain private papers that I had wished to keep from his eyes.

No man, whoever he may be, reposes absolute confidence in his secretary.

Every one has some personal matter, the existence of which he desires to preserve secret to himself alone.

I drew forth the locked portfolio, and placed it upon the blotting-pad before me. It was an expansive wallet, of a kind such as I remembered having seen carried by bankers' clerks in the City from bank to bank, attached by chains to the belts around their waists.

Surely upon my ring I must possess a key to it. I looked, and found a small bra.s.s key.

It fitted, and a moment later I had unlocked the wallet and spread my own private papers before me.

What secrets of my lost life, I wondered, might not those carefully preserved letters and doc.u.ments contain?

In eager, anxious wonder I turned them over.

Next instant a cry of dismay broke involuntarily from my lips, as within trembling fingers I held one of those papers--a letter addressed to me.

I could scarce believe my own eyes as I read it. Yet the truth was plain--hideously plain.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

I MAKE A DISCOVERY.

Reader, I must take you still further into my confidence. What you have already read is strange, but certain things which subsequently happened to me were even still stranger.

I held that astounding letter in my hand. My eyes were riveted upon it.

The words written there were puzzling indeed. A dozen times I read them through, agape with wonder.

The communication, upon the notepaper of the _Bath Hotel_ at Bournemouth, was dated June 4, 1891--five years before--and ran as follows:--

"Dear Mr Heaton,--

"I very much regret that you should have thus misunderstood me. I thought when we met at Windermere you were quite of my opinion. You, however, appear to have grown tired after the five months of our engagement, and your love for me has suddenly cooled; therefore our paths in life must in future lie apart. You have at least told me the truth honestly and straightforwardly. I, of course, believed that your declarations were true, and that you really loved me truly, but alas! it is evidently not so. I can only suffer in silence. Good-bye for ever.

We shall never, never meet again. But I tell you, Wilford, that I bear you no malice, and that my prayers will ever be for your welfare and your happiness. Perhaps sometimes you will give a pa.s.sing thought to the sorrowful, heart-broken woman who still loves you.

"Mabel Anson."

What could this mean? It spoke of our engagement for five months! I had no knowledge whatever of ever having declared the secret of my love, much less becoming her affianced husband. Was it possible that in the first few months of my unconscious life I had met her and told her of my affection, of how I worshipped her with all the strength of my being?

As I sat there with the carefully preserved letter in my hand there arose before my eyes a vision of her calm, fair face, bending over the piano, her handsome profile illumined by the candles on either side, the single diamond suspended by its invisible chain, gleaming at her throat like a giant's eye. The impression I had obtained of her on that night at The Boltons still remained indelibly with me. Yes, her beauty was superb, her sweetness unsurpa.s.sed by that of any other woman I had ever met.

Among the other private papers preserved within the wallet were four sc.r.a.ps of notepaper with typewriting upon them. All bore the same signature--that of the strange name "Avel." All of them made appointments. One asked me to meet the writer in the writing-room of the _Hotel Victoria_ in London, another made an appointment to meet me "on the Promenade at Eastbourne opposite the Wish Tower"; a third suggested my office at Winchester House as a meeting-place, and the fourth gave a rendezvous on the departure platform at King's Cross Station.

I fell to wondering whether I had kept any of these engagements. The most recent of the letters was dated nearly two years ago.

But the afternoon was wearing on, therefore I placed the puzzling communications in my pocket and ascended to my room in order to rest, and thus carry out the feint of attending to old Britten's directions.

The dressing-bell awakened me, but, confident in the knowledge that I should remain undisturbed, I removed the bandages from my head, bathed the wound, and applied some plaster in the place of the handkerchief.

Then, with my hat on, my injury was concealed.

The sun was declining when I managed to slip out of the house un.o.bserved, and set forth down the avenue to Littleham village. The quaint old place was delightful in the evening calm, but, heedless of everything, I hurried forward down the hill to Withycombe Raleigh, and thence straight across the open country to Lympston station, where I took a third-cla.s.s ticket for Exeter. At a wayside station a pa.s.senger for London is always remarked, therefore I only booked as far as the junction with the main-line.

At Exeter I found that the up-mail was not due for ten minutes, therefore I telegraphed to London for a room at the _Grand Hotel_, and afterwards bought some newspapers with which to while away the journey.

Sight of newspapers dated six years later than those I had last seen aroused within me a lively curiosity. How incredible it all seemed as in that dimly lit railway-carriage I sat gathering from those printed pages the history of the lost six years of my life!

The only other occupant of the compartment besides myself was a woman.

I had sought an empty carriage, but failing to find one, was compelled to accept her as travelling companion. She was youngish, perhaps thirty-five, and neatly dressed, but her face, as far as I could distinguish it through her spotted veil, was that of a woman melancholy and bowed down by trouble. In her dark hair were premature threads of silver, and her deep-sunken eyes, peering forth strangely at me, were the eyes of a woman rendered desperate.

I did not like the look of her. In travelling one is quick to entertain an instinctive dislike to one's companion, and it was so in my case. I found myself regretting that I had not entered a smoking-carriage. But I soon became absorbed in my papers, and forgot her presence.

It was only her voice, a curiously high-pitched one, that made me start.

She inquired if I minded her closing the window because of the draught, and I at once closed it, responding rather frigidly, I believe.

But she was in no humour to allow the conversation to drop and commenced to chat with a familiarity that surprised me.

She noticed how puzzled I became, and at length remarked with a laugh--

"You apparently don't recognise me, Mr Heaton."

"No, madam," I answered, taken aback. "You have certainly the advantage of me."

This recognition was startling, for was I not flying to London to escape my friends? This woman, whoever she was, would without doubt recount her meeting with me.

"It is really very droll," she laughed. "I felt sure from the first, when you entered the compartment, that you didn't know me."

"I certainly don't know you," I responded coldly--

She smiled. "Ah! I expect it's my veil," she said.

"But it's really remarkable that you should not recognise Joliot, your wife's maid."

"You! My wife's maid!" I gasped, recognising in an instant how cleverly I had been run to earth.

"Yes," she replied. "Surely you recognise me?" and she raised her veil, displaying a rather unprepossessing face, dark and tragic, as though full of some hidden, sorrow.

I had never seen the woman before in my life, but instantly I resolved to display no surprise and act with caution.

"Ah, of course!" I said lamely. "The light here is so bad, you know, that I didn't recognise you. And where are you going?"

"To London--to the dressmaker's."