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I saw how Ethelwynn watched the contortions of the old doctor's face with secret satisfaction, for he had ever been her enemy, just as he had been mine. He had uttered those libellous hints regarding her with a view to parting us, so as to give him greater freedom to work his will with poor Mary.
"Poor Ethelwynn has been pining day after day for a word from you; but you seldom, if ever, write, and when you do the coldness of your letters adds to her burden of grief. I knew always when she had received one by the traces of secret tears upon her cheeks.
"I'm certain of it. Ethelwynn has never a thought for any man save yourself. I'll vouch for that." "But what object can she have in telling me an untruth?" The widow smiled. "A very deep one, probably. You don't know her as well as I do, or you would suspect all her actions of ulterior motive."
I dare not be more explicit, for Ethelwynn has urged me to conceal our identity, in order that we may not be remarked as a couple whose wooing was so strangely tragic and romantic. Ambler Jevons still carries on his tea-blending business in the City, the most confirmed of bachelors, and the shrewdest of all criminal investigators.
Ethelwynn met us at the foot of the stairs, still wearing the shawl about her head and shoulders. She placed a trembling hand upon my arm as I passed, asking in a low anxious voice: "Have you found anything, Ralph? Tell me." "No, nothing," I replied, and then passed into the dining-room, where the nurse and domestics had been assembled.
"Well, Doctor," she answered, in a voice quite calm and deliberate, "you've already shown yourself so openly as being disinclined to further associate yourself publicly with poor Ethelwynn, because of the tragedy that befell the household, that you surely cannot complain if you find your place usurped by a new and more devoted lover." "What!" I cried, starting up, fiercely.
I explained it to him in detail, for I saw that his thoughts were following in the same channel as my own. We both pitied the unfortunate woman. My friend knew her well, for he had often accompanied me there and had spent the evening with us. Ethelwynn liked him for his careless Bohemianism, and for the fund of stories always at his command.
I only know that in those night hours over my pipe I resolved to forget once and for all that letter I had discovered among the "dead" man's effects, and determined that, while I sought reconciliation with Ethelwynn, I would keep an open and watchful eye upon Mary and her fellow conspirator.
"Well, my child," he said, "you've stuck to me in this in a manner that few women would have dared. If you really think it necessary to bring Boyd and Ethelwynn together again you must do it entirely alone, for I could not possibly appear on the scene. He must never meet me, or the whole thing would be revealed." "For your sake I am prepared to make the attempt," she said.
No, my dear; rest assured that these men will never get at our secret never." I smiled within myself. How little did he dream that the man of whom he had been speaking was actually overhearing his words! "But Ethelwynn, in order to regain her place in the doctor's heart, may betray us," his wife remarked dubiously. "She dare not," was the reply. "From her we have nothing whatever to fear.
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