d desperately.

She heard and turned her face.

My God, it was Anne herself! For a second only I saw her face
distinctly, then she pulled the scarf over it with a quick gesture; the
boat shot under the dark shadow of the arches and disappeared.

I stood dumbfounded for some minutes, staring at the river, and trying
to convince myself that I was mad--that I had dreamt the whole incident.

When at last I turned to retrace my steps I saw something dark lying at
the top of the steps, stooped, and picked it up.

It was a spray of scarlet geranium!

CHAPTER V

THE MYSTERY THICKENS

When I regained the bridge I crossed to the further parapet and looked
down at the river. I could see nothing of the boat; doubtless it had
passed out of sight behind a string of barges that lay in the tideway.
As I watched, the moon was veiled again by the clouds that rolled up
from the west, heralding a second storm; and in another minute or so a
fresh deluge had commenced.

But I scarcely heeded it. I leaned against the parapet staring at the
dark, mysterious river and the lights that fringed and spanned it like
strings of blurred jewels, seen mistily through the driving rain.

I was bareheaded, for the fierce gust of wind that came as harbinger of
the squall had swept off my hat and whirled it into the water, where
doubtless it would be carried down-stream, on the swiftly ebbing tide,
in the wake of that boat which was hastening--whither? I don't think I
knew at the time that my hat was gone. I have lived through some strange
and terrible experiences; but I have seldom suffered more mental agony
than I did during those few minutes that I stood in the rain on
Westminster Bridge.

I was trembling from head to foot, my soul was sick, my mind distracted
by the effort to find any plausible explanation of the scene I had just
witnessed.

What was this mystery that encompassed the girl I loved; that had closed
around her now? A mystery that I had never even suspected till a few
hours ago, though I had seen Anne every day for this month past,--ever
since I first met her.

But, after all, what did I know of her antecedents? Next to nothing; and
that I had learned mainly from my cousin Mary.

Now I came to think of it, Anne had told me very little about herself. I
knew that her father, Anthony Pendennis, came of an old family, and
possessed a house and estate in the west of England, which he had let on
a long lease. Anne had nev