He raised his dark eyebrow's in gesture of bewilderment. Then he gazed gravely in my face. "Look here, Boyd," I continued, "I love Eva Glaslyn, and to you I make no secret of it whatsoever. But at all hazards I mean to ascertain the truth." "Even at the risk of convicting her?" he inquired, looking across at me quickly. "Convicting her!" I echoed. "Then you really entertain the same suspicion as myself?" "We may have suspicions without forming any theories," he responded calmly. Then he added, in a tone of regret, "It's certainly a thousand pities that you love her." "Why?" "Upon your own showing she appears to have very little regard for you." "How?" "Well," he answered slowly, "there's no doubt that the other day an attempt was made upon your life." "And you suspect her?" "We can suspect no one else," he answered. "According to that old herbalist's statement she had purchased a certain drug of him. What could an innocent young lady require with this unnamed drug if not to administer it to some one she wanted to get rid of?" "But she has no object in ridding herself of me," I urged. "Of that I'm not quite so sure, my dear fellow," he observed, after a brief pause. "Recollect that on the morning when she went to St. James's Park in order to meet, for some mysterious purpose, the man whom we now know was old Mr. Blain, she met you face to face. We have no idea what her actions were previously, but she may have believed that you had been spying upon her; therefore, on recognising you when you were formally introduced at Riverdene, she conceived a plan for getting you out of the way. It was with that object very possibly that she made the secret purchase at the herbalist's." "No, Boyd, I can't believe it of her," I said quickly. "I won't believe it!" "Very well," he said in the same calm tone as before. "But there's still another fact extremely puzzling, and that is why this man Lowry should have left in such a hurry. I must inquire at the Carter Street Police-Station, the district wherein he lived, and see whether there was anything against him. By the way," he added, "does your friend Cleugh know the whole of these facts you've explained to me?" "No, not the whole--only some." "Does he know that you've declared your love to Lady Glaslyn's daughter and been refused?" "No." "Then don't tell him," said the detective. "I believe that the reason of his sudden weariness of Lily Lowry's society is due to the fact that he loves Mary Blain." "All the more reason, then, why he should in future remain in entire ignorance of whatever facts we may elicit." Then he paused, furiously consuming his cigarette and taking a long draught of the whisky-and-soda I had mixed and placed at his elbow.