all, Owen."

"No, dearest," I said quite calmly. "It all occurred just as I have
repeated it to you."

"And he really entered the taxi with Reckitt? He said, too, that he
knew my father--eh?"

"He did."

She held her breath. Her eyes were staring straight before her, her
breath came and went quickly, and she gripped the wooden post to
steady herself, for she swayed forward suddenly, and I stretched out
my hand, fearing lest she should fall.

What I had told her seemed to stagger her. It revealed something of
intense importance to her--something which, to me, remained hidden.

It was still a complete enigma.

CHAPTER TWENTY

THE STRANGER IN THE RUE DE RIVOLI

From Scarborough we had gone up to the Highlands, spending a fortnight
at Grantown, a week at Blair Atholl, returning south through Callander
and the Trossachs--one of the most glorious autumns I had ever spent.

Ours was now a peaceful, uneventful life, careless of the morrow, and
filled with perfect love and concord. I adored my young beautiful
wife, and I envied no man.

I had crushed down all feelings of misgivings that had hitherto so
often arisen within me, for I felt confident in Sylvia's affection.
She lived only for me, possessing me body and soul.

Not a pair in the whole of England loved each other with a truer or
more fervent passion. Our ideas were identical, and certainly I could
not have chosen a wife more fitted for me--even though she rested
beneath such a dark cloud of suspicion.

I suppose some who read this plain statement of fact will declare me
to have been a fool. But to such I would reply that in your hearts the
flame of real love has never yet burned. You may have experienced what
you have fondly believed to have been love--a faint flame that has
perhaps flickered for a time and, dying out, has long been forgotten.
Only if you have really loved a woman--loved her with that
all-consuming passion that arises within a man once in his whole
lifetime when he meets his affinity, can you understand why I made
Sylvia my wife.

I had the car brought up to meet us in Perth, and with it Sylvia and I
had explored all the remotest beauties of the Highlands. We ran up as
far north as Inverness, and around to Oban, delighting in all the
beauties of the heather-clad hills, the wild moors, the autumn-tinted
glades, and the broad unruffled lochs. Afterwards we went round the
Trossachs and motored back to London through Carlisle, the