finding him dead, her romantic mind at once conjured up visions of murder.”
“Yes. There is a good deal in your argument,” I admitted, with a touch of sorrow at the remembrance that Ogle had aspired to her hand.
“I never spoke to you on the subject, for fear of making mischief, but I have many times been amazed at your blindness when Dudley and Ella used to flirt openly before your very eyes,” he observed, glancing at me.
“Ah! you are right,” I cried angrily. “I foolishly trusted him, believing implicitly in his honour and in Ella’s purity.”
“Of the latter you surely have no cause for suspicion,” he exclaimed quickly.
“I am not so certain,” I replied with bitterness. “The more deeply I attempt to probe this mystery, the more sorrow I heap upon myself. I was happy in the belief that she loved no other man except me, yet apparently she is as tactful as an adventuress, and delights in toying with a man’s affections.”
“Every woman is fickle,” my friend remarked sympathetically. “If she is thrown into the society of one man frequently, and passes idle hours alone with him, she either ends in loving him or hating him. There is little purely platonic friendship between men and women nowadays.”
“Yes, alas!” I echoed, as we entered the carriage drive and passed the well-remembered spot where I had discovered the body. “There is very little indeed.”
A quarter of an hour later I stood alone before the window of the bright morning-room which commanded a beautiful view of the brilliant, sunlit Thames, and the row of tall, swaying poplars and drooping, wind-whitened willows on the opposite shore. I was awaiting Ella, who had, her maid told me, gone to her room.
Presently, pale-faced and trembling, she entered, and, closing the door, moved slowly towards me, stretching forth her hand in silence, her tearful eyes downcast. I grasped the slim, white fingers, and found them cold as marble.
“Geoffrey,” she exclaimed, low and huskily. “Geoffrey, forgive me!”
“Forgive! For what reason?” I inquired sternly, looking at her in admiration, yet determined to be firm. This was, I resolved, to be our last interview.
“Because I – I was foolish and weak, and – ” She paused, sighing deeply.
“Well?” I said cynically. “What other excuse?”
“Yes, yes,” she cried brokenly. “I know they are mean, paltry excuses. I know I am trying to make you believe it was not my own fault, yet – ” and pausing again, she raised her clear blue eyes to mine with passionate glance, “and yet, Geoffrey, I love you in a manner I have loved no other man before.”
“You have a strange way of exhibiting this so-called affection,” I observed coldly. “You actually encouraged the advances of the man in whom I reposed foolish and ill-placed confidence.”
“For a purpose. I never loved him – never,” she protested, trembling.
“You had a reason? A strange one, I should think,” I exclaimed angrily. “Indeed, at this very moment you are mourning the loss of this man.”
“Dudley Ogle was not your enemy, Geoffrey. He was your friend,” she answered, with a tremor in her voice. “Some day I will prove this to you. I cannot now. It is impossible.”
“Why?”
“I dare not!”
“Dare not! What do you fear?” I demanded in surprise, instantly releasing her hand.
“The consequences would be fatal to our love,” she gasped. Then, after a pause, she clutched my arm, and, burying her beautiful face upon my shoulder, sobbed bitterly.
“Our love!” I echoed contemptuously. Notwithstanding the fierceness of my anger, I smoothed her dark gold hair, and presently, when she grew a trifle calmer, endeavoured to discover the meaning of her strange, enigmatical words.
“You cannot know – you will never know – how dearly I have loved you, Geoffrey,” she cried, in answer to my eager questions. “Neither will you ever know how much I have suffered, how hard I have striven for your sake.”
“For my sake! Yet you admit having allowed Dudley Ogle to utter words that I alone had a right to utter!”
“Yes, I admit all,” she said, with a tragic touch of sorrow in her strained voice. “I deny nothing.”
“And you come to me asking forgiveness, believing that I can again trust you without hearing any explanation of your recent strange conduct with Beck, as well as with Dudley! I think you must regard me, Ella, as a weak, impressionable fool,” I added, with bitter sarcasm.
“No, I do not,” she cried quickly. “I appeal to your generosity towards a woman. I have been compelled to act against my own inclinations, compelled, in order to outwit my enemies, to act a part despicable and revolting. I can now only ask forgiveness,” and, throwing herself suddenly upon her knees before me, she cried, “See! Geoffrey, I crave one grain of pity from you, my old friend, the only man I have loved!”
“No, Ella,” I answered, quickly withdrawing my hand that she was pressing to her hot, fevered lips. “I may pity you, but forgive you never.”
“Never!” she gasped, clasping her breast with her hands as if to stay the wild beating of her heart, and struggling unevenly to her feet. “Why never?”
“Because you have deceived me.”
“Yes, yes!” she wailed. “I admit it, I admit it all, but I swear my actions were imperative. Ah! alas that you cannot know everything, or you would kiss me as fondly as you used to do. You, Geoffrey, would love me with a love even more tender and passionate than before, if only you were aware of what I have suffered for your sake.”
I turned from her in disgust. Her tragic attitude filled me with loathing and contempt, for I knew she was lying.
“Can you never again trust me?” she asked, in a low, hoarse voice. “Will you never forgive?”
“I can have no further confidence in a woman who has practised such artful deception as you have,” I answered, turning again towards her, and noticing the look of unutterable sadness in her tearful eyes.
“Deception!” she cried, starting. “What do you mean? What have I done?”
“You acknowledge having deceived me wilfully with all the deep cunning of an adventuress, yet you refuse me one word of explanation, either in regard to Beck or Dudley?”
“There is nothing to explain, as far as Mr Beck is concerned,” she answered demurely. “He is an old friend, and your suspicions that there was any love between us are absolutely absurd.”
“Why, then, did you confess in your letter that you were unworthy of my love!” I demanded with warmth, walking towards her.
She hung her head. There was a deep silence, broken only by the low ticking of the clock. In a few moments her hand stole in search of mine, and, engrossed in my own sad thoughts, I let it linger there.
“Geoffrey,” she said at length, timidly.
I gazed out upon the sunlit river, watching a boatful of happy holiday folk
