"I remember that we spoke of Miss Sylvia," I exclaimed, "and that you refused to satisfy my curiosity."
"I refused, because I am not permitted," was his calm rejoinder.
"Since I saw you," I said, "a dastardly attempt has been made upon my life. I was enticed to an untenanted house in Bayswater, and after a cheque for a thousand pounds had been obtained from me by a trick, I narrowly escaped death by a devilish device. My grave, I afterwards found, was already prepared."
"Is this a fact!" he gasped.
"It is. I was rescued--by Sylvia herself."
He was silent, drawing hard at his pipe, deep in thought.
"The names of the two men who made the dastardly attempt upon me were Reckitt and Forbes--friends of Sylvia Pennington," I went on.
He nodded. Then, removing his pipe, exclaimed--
"Yes. I understand. But did I not warn you?"
"You did. But, to be frank, Mr. Shuttleworth, I really did not follow you then. Neither do I now."
"Have I not told you, my dear sir, that I possess certain knowledge under vow of absolute secrecy--knowledge which it is not permitted to me, as a servant of G.o.d, to divulge."
"But surely if you knew that a.s.sa.s.sination was contemplated, it was your duty to warn me."
"I did--but you took no heed," he declared. "Sylvia warned you also, when you met in Gardone, and yet you refused to take her advice and go into hiding!"
"But why should an innocent, law-abiding, inoffensive man be compelled to hide himself like a fugitive from justice?" I protested.
"Who can fathom human enmity, or the ingenious cunning of the evil-doer?" asked the grey-faced rector quite calmly. "Have you never stopped to wonder at the marvellous subtlety of human wickedness?"
"Those men are veritable fiends," I cried. "Yet why have I aroused their animosity? If you know so much concerning them, Mr.
Shuttleworth, don"t you think that it is your duty to protect your fellow-creatures?--to make it your business to inform the police?" I added.
"Probably it is," he said reflectively. "But there are times when even the performance of one"s duty may be injudicious."
"Surely it is not injudicious to expose the methods of such blackguards!" I cried.
"Pardon me," he said. "I am compelled to differ with that opinion.
Were you in possession of the same knowledge as myself, you too, would, I feel sure, deem it injudicious."
"But what is this secret knowledge?" I demanded. "I have narrowly escaped being foully done to death. I have been robbed, and I feel that it is but right that I should now know the truth."
"Not from me, Mr. Biddulph," he answered. "Have I not already told you the reason why no word of the actual facts may pa.s.s my lips?"
"I cannot see why you should persist in thus mystifying me as to the sinister motive of that pair of a.s.sa.s.sins. If they wished to rob me, they could have done so without seeking to take my life by those horrible means."
"What means did they employ?" he asked.
Briefly and vividly I explained their methods, as he sat silent, listening to me to the end. He evinced neither horror nor surprise.
Perhaps he knew their mode of procedure only too well.
"I warned you," was all he vouchsafed. "Sylvia warned you also."
"It is over--of the past, Mr. Shuttleworth," I said, rising from my chair. "I feel confident that Sylvia, though she possessed knowledge of what was intended, had no hand whatever in it. Indeed, so confident am I of her loyalty to me, that to-day--yes, let me confess it to you--for I know you are my friend as well as hers, to-day, here--only an hour ago, I asked Sylvia to become my wife."
"Your wife!" he gasped, starting to his feet, his countenance pale and drawn.
"Yes, my wife."
"And what was her answer?" he asked dryly, in a changed tone.
"She has consented."
"Mr. Biddulph," he said very gravely, looking straight into my face, "this must never be! Have I not already told you the ghastly truth?--that there is a secret--an unmentionable secret----"
"A secret concerning her!" I cried. "What is it? Come, Mr.
Shuttleworth, you shall tell me, I demand to know!"
"I can only repeat that between you and Sylvia Pennington there still lies the open gulf--and that gulf is, indeed, the grave. In your ignorance of the strange but actual facts you do not realize your own dread peril, or you would never ask her to become your wife. Abandon all thought of her, I beg of you," he urged earnestly. "Take this advice of mine, for one day you will a.s.suredly thank me for my counsel."
"I love her with all the strength of my being, and for me that is sufficient," I declared.
"Ah!" he cried in despair as he paced the room. "To think of the irony of it all! That you should actually woo her--of all women!" Then, halting before me, his eye grew suddenly aflame, he clenched his hands and cried: "But you shall not! Understand me, you shall hate her; you shall curse her very name. You shall never love her--never--I, Edmund Shuttleworth, forbid it! It must not be!"
At that instant the _frou-frou_ of a woman"s skirts fell upon my ears, and, turning quickly, I saw Sylvia herself standing at the open French windows.
Entering un.o.bserved she had heard those wild words of the rector"s, and stood pale, breathless, rigid as a statue.
"There!" he cried, pointing at her with his thin, bony finger. "There she is! Ask her yourself, now--before me--the reason why she can never be your wife--the reason that her love is forbidden! If she really loves you, as she pretends, she will tell you the truth with her own lips!"
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
FORBIDDEN LOVE
I stood before Shuttleworth angry and defiant.
I had crossed to Sylvia and had taken her soft hand.
"I really cannot see, sir, by what right you interfere between us!" I cried, looking at him narrowly. "You forbid! What do I care--why, pray, should you forbid my actions?"
"I forbid," repeated the thin-faced clergyman, "because I have a right--a right which one day will be made quite plain to you."
"Ah! Mr. Shuttleworth," gasped Sylvia, now pale as death, "what are you saying?"
"The truth, my child. You know too well that, for you, love and marriage are forbidden," he exclaimed, looking at her meaningly.