There was certainly an element of deepest mystery in the fact that the unknown man who had kept the appointment in St. James's Park, and had afterwards taken such elaborate precautions against being followed, should be revealed to be none other than the once purse-proud proprietor of Shenley. Quite apparent it was, too, that the object of Eva's visit to the park was to meet him clandestinely, for what reason was a profound enigma. The more I revolved the strange events within my mind, the more absolutely bewildering they become. True, I had made certain discoveries--discoveries which, rather than tending to throw light on the real author of the crime or its motive, only, however, increased the enigma and enveloped the woman whom I had grown to love so fondly in an impenetrable veil of suspicion. Thoughts such as these filled my mind as, turning from the station in despair, I went back into the dust and turmoil of Fleet Street, crowded at that hour by tired thousands hurrying homeward. I loved Eva. Even though every proof I had obtained pointed to her complicity in the dastardly affair, she was still my idol. I thought daily, hourly, only of her, refusing always to suspect her, and endeavouring to convince myself that the truths I had elicited had no foundation in fact. Love is blind. When a man loves a woman as I loved Eva Glaslyn at that moment, nothing can turn aside his passion. I verily believe that if at that hour I had stood by and seen her in the dock at the Old Bailey, condemned as a murderess, my affection for her would have been none the less. I lived for her alone. She was all that was dearest in the world to me. Mary Blain had, no doubt, noticed my infatuation, yet she had said nothing, she herself being, I believed, in love with Dick. At least I could congratulate myself that we had mutually agreed to allow the past to fade from our remembrance. Nevertheless, when I thought of Eva, and told myself how passionate was my affection and how ardent my feelings towards her, the ogre of suspicion would sometimes arise and cause me to pause in my ecstatic dreamings. Had she not stiffened strangely, and refused to reciprocate my love? Had she not point-blank told me that we could never be more than friends? Had she not, indeed, herself hinted at her own guilt in that strange sentence which had fallen from her lips?