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It was passion developed under its most profound and serious aspects; they showed the calm and thoughtful, not the brilliant side of intellect. In Ethelwynn's character the passionate and the imaginative were blended equally and in the highest conceivable degree as combined with delicate female nature.
"There need be no secrets between us in this affair." "No, Ralph. But I'm superstitious enough to believe that ill-luck follows a premature exposure of one's plans," he said. His excuse was a lame one a very lame one. I smiled in order to show him that I read through such a transparent attempt to mislead me. "I might have refused to show you that letter of Ethelwynn's," I protested.
Or was he still suspicious of Ethelwynn's guilt? Puzzled by this vague note, and wondering what had occurred, and whether the trip to Bath was in connection with it, I made a hasty toilet and drove in a hansom to the Hennikers'. Mrs. Henniker met me in the drawing-room, just as gushing and charming as ever.
While posing as Ethelwynn's friend, and entertaining her beneath her roof, she actually insinuates to you the probability of a secret lover! Is it fair? Is it the action of an honest, trustworthy woman?" I was compelled to admit that it was not. Yet, was this action of her own, in coming to me in those circumstances, in any way more straightforward?
My brain was awhirl with thoughts of all the curious events of the past few months the inexplicable presence of old Mr. Courtenay, and the subsequent death of Mary and of the only man who, according to Ambler, knew the remarkable secret. Ethelwynn's strange words worried me. What could she mean? What did she know? Surely hers could not be a guilty conscience.
Regarded in the light of the knowledge I had gained when down at Neneford, it was, of course, plain that both she and her "dead" husband were anxious to secure Ethelwynn's silence, and believed they could effect this by inducing us to marry. The conspiracy was deeply-laid and ingenious, as indeed was the whole of the amazing plot.
Henniker's veiled words a statement of the truth; and, after obtaining from her Ethelwynn's address near Hereford, bade her farewell and blindly left the house.
"I always go round myself, and see that everything is fastened." "The front door, for example?" "I bolted it at Miss Ethelwynn's orders." "At what time?" "One o'clock. She told me to wait up till then, and if mistress did not return I was to lock up and go to bed." "Then the tragedy must have been enacted about half an hour later?" "I think so, sir."
But I'll do my utmost, because I see that by the reconciliation Ethelwynn's lips would be sealed." "Act with discretion, my dear," urged the old man. "But remember that Boyd is not a man to be trifled with and as for that accursed friend of his, Ambler Jevons, he seems second cousin to the very King of Darkness himself." "Never fear," she laughed confidently. "Leave it to me leave all to me."
"The fact of being Ethelwynn's sister gives me freedom to speak my mind to him." "And to tell him some pretty little fiction about her?" he added, laughing. "Yes. It will certainly be necessary to put an entirely innocent face on recent events in order to smooth matters over," she admitted, joining in his laughter. "Rather a difficult task to make the affair at Kew appear innocent," he observed.
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