"I quite understand your feelings and all that you must suffer, Mr Leaf," she said at last in a mechanical voice. "I know how deeply you love Ella, and, after all that has passed, it is not in the least surprising that you will not stand by and see her married to such a man as Gordon-Wright. Yet is it really prudent to act without carefully considering every point? That she is about to become that man's wife shows that she is in his power--that he possesses some mysterious hold over her. And suppose you denounced him to the police, would he not, on his part, revenge himself upon her?" "Probably. But I will risk that." "Personally I think that Ella will be the greater sufferer from such an injudicious action." Curious. Her words bore out exactly what Ella herself had said. Yet she surely could know nothing of the secret between them. Until half an hour ago, when I had told her, she was not even aware that Gordon-Wright was acquainted with the woman who had been betrothed to me. "But I do not intend that she shall fall the victim of this adventurer," I said quickly, for I recognised in her words a fear that her father's secret might be exposed. "If he really possesses a hold over her sufficient to compel her to marry him, any attempt to rescue her may only cause her complete ruin," she said. "Have you any idea of the nature of this extraordinary influence he seems to have over her?" "None. I am in entire ignorance." "When we met that night at Studland I certainly was deceived," she went on. "I believed that she was beside herself with delight at finding you again, and still unmarried--I never dreamed that she was engaged to another--and to Gordon-Wright of all men." "Why do you say `of all men'?" "Because--well, because he's the last man a girl of her stamp should marry." "Then you know more about him than you care to admit, Miss Miller?" "We need not discuss him," was her brief answer. "It is Ella we have to think of, not of him." "Yes," I said, "we have to think of her--to extricate her from the horrible fate that threatens her--marriage to a scoundrel." Then turning again to my pretty companion I said, in a voice intended to be more confidential: "Now, Miss Miller, your position and mine are, after all, very curious. Though we have been acquainted so short a time, yet the fact of your having been Ella's most intimate friend has cemented our own friendship to an extraordinary degree. We have exchanged confidences as old friends, and I have told you the secrets of my heart. Yet you, on your part, have not been exactly open with me. You are still concealing from me certain facts which, if you would but reveal, would, I know, assist me in releasing Ella from her bondage. Why do you not speak plainly? I have travelled here, across Europe, to beg of you to tell me the truth," I added, looking straight into her pale serious face. "How can I tell you the truth when I am ignorant of it myself?" she protested.