"Ah! yes," I sighed in despair, "if only she could be. Yet I fear that it is impossible. This fellow for some mysterious reason holds her future in his hands. She refuses to reveal anything to me, except that to break away from him is impossible. Indeed, the real reason of her flying visit to you at Studland was to consult him. She knew he was visiting there, and slipped away from her father in order to call upon you." "But we had no idea that they were acquainted," Lucie declared. "After she had gone to bed your father and Gordon-Wright remained up, talking, she crept back downstairs, I believe, and overheard their conversation." "She did!" she gasped, her cheeks going pale. "She heard what they said! Are you quite sure of this?" "Yes." "Then--then she really came to spy upon Gordon-Wright--to spy upon us indeed!" "Not with any sinister motive," I hastened to assure her. "She is evidently endeavouring to discover something concerning this man who holds her so utterly powerless in his hands. It is but natural, is it not? It is only what you or I would do in similar circumstances." My companion's face had changed. She was pale and anxious, eager to learn all that I had ascertained. "She told you this--how she had overheard my father talking to him?" "No, Gordon-Wright himself charged her with eaves-dropping--and she admitted it." "Ah! Then if this be true, Mr Leaf, she had better marry him." "Marry him!" I cried. "Why?" "Because I have a suspicion that she knows something concerning my father. What it is sorely puzzles me." "I--I don't quite understand you," I said. "Well--I thought I had spoken plainly enough," she answered. "You have told me that she admitted to him that she overheard his conversation with my father." "Well, and what if she did?" I asked. "Was the consultation between your father and his friend of such a secret nature?" She hesitated a moment, then lifting her eyes to mine, said:-- "I believe it was." "You believe," I echoed. "You must know, if you are prepared to sacrifice Ella to that man!" "He probably is in possession of some secret of hers," she remarked slowly. "And she on her part, it appears, is in possession of some secret of his." "And of my father's." "What is it she knows?" I asked. "Come, give me some hint of it," I urged. "A moment ago you were my friend, prepared to assist poor Ella to escape--yet now you declare that they must marry." "Yes," was her hard response. "I did not know that she had acted the spy in my father's house--that she was in love with Gordon-Wright and had come to see him while he was under our roof." "She's not in love with him," I protested. "She denies it. Unfortunately she is his victim." "She deceived you once, remember. Why do you still trust her?" "Her deception was one for self-sacrifice--to save her father." "And my refusal to assist you in saving her from Gordon-Wright is from the same motive." "To save your father?"