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Page 68
"In what way?"
"You are afraid of your thoughts. You can see that Madame de St�mer and
Colonel Menendez are deliberately concealing something from Paul
Harley, and you don't know where your duty lies. Am I right?"
She met my glance for a moment in a startled way, then: "Yes," she
said, softly; "you are quite right. How have you guessed?"
"I have tried very hard to understand you," I replied, "and so perhaps
up to a point I have succeeded."
"Oh, Mr. Knox." She suddenly laid her hand upon my arm. "I am oppressed
with such a dreadful foreboding, yet I don't know how to explain it to
you."
"I understand. I, too, have felt it."
"You have?" She paused, and looked at me eagerly. "Then it is not just
morbid imagination on my part. If only I knew what to do, what to
believe. Really, I am bewildered. I have just left Madame de St�mer--"
"Yes?" I said, for she had paused in evident doubt.
"Well, she has utterly broken down."
"Broken down?"
"She came to my room and sobbed hysterically for nearly an hour this
afternoon."
"But what was the cause of her grief?"
"I simply cannot understand."
"Is it possible that Colonel Menendez is dangerously ill?"
"It may be so, Mr. Knox, but in that event why have they not sent for a
physician?"
"True," I murmured; "and no one has been sent for?"
"No one."
"Have you seen Colonel Menendez?"
"Not since lunch-time."
"Have you ever known him to suffer in this way before?"
"Never. It is utterly unaccountable. Certainly during the last few
months he has given up riding practically altogether, and in other ways
has changed his former habits, but I have never known him to exhibit
traces of any real illness."
"Has any medical man attended him?"
"Not that I know of. Oh, there is something uncanny about it all.
Whatever should I do if you were not here?"
She had spoken on impulse, and seeing her swift embarrassment:
"Miss Beverley," I said, "I am delighted to know that my company cheers
you."
Truth to tell my heart was beating rapidly, and, so selfish is the
nature of man, I was more glad to learn that my company was acceptable
to Val Beverley than I should have been to have had the riddle of
Cray's Folly laid bare before me.
Those sweetly indiscreet words, however, had raised a momentary barrier
between us, and we walked on silently to the house, and entered the
brightly lighted hall.
The silver peal of a Chinese tubular gong rang out just when we reached
the veranda, and as Val Beverley and I walked in from the garden,
Madame de St�mer came wheeling through the doorway, closely followed by
Paul Harley. In her the art of the toilette amounted almost to genius,
and she had so successfully concealed all traces of her recent grief
that I wondered if this could have been real.
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