er
after Lady Chetwynde should now turn out to be the betrayer of Miss
Lorton. And this made his present purpose the more unintelligible.
What was it that had brought him across Obed's path? Was he still
seeking after information about Lady Chetwynde? or, rather, was he
seeking to renew his former attempt against Miss Lorton? To this
latter supposition Obed felt himself drawn. It seemed to him most
probable that Gualtier had somehow found out about the rescue of
Zillah, and was now tracking her with the intention of consummating
his work. This only could account for his twofold disguise, and his
persistence in coming toward the villa after the punishment and the
warning which he had once received. To think that he should run such
a risk in order to prosecute his inquiry after Lady Chetwynde was
absurd; but to suppose that he did it from certain designs on Miss
Lorton seemed the most natural thing in the world for a villain in
his position.

But behind all this there was something more; and this became to Obed
the most difficult problem. It was easy to conjecture the present
motive of this Gualtier--the motive which had drawn him out to the
villa, to track them, to spy them, and to hover about the place; but
there was another thing to which it was not so easy to give an
answer. It was the startling fact of the identity between the man who
had once come to him in order to investigate about Lady Chetwynde and
the one who had betrayed Miss Lorton. How did it happen that the same
man should have taken part in each? What should have led him to
America for the purpose of questioning him about that long-forgotten
tragedy, and afterward have made him the assassin which he was? It
seemed as though this Gualtier was associated with the two chief
tragedies of Obed's life, for this of Miss Lorton was certainly not
inferior in its effect upon his feelings to that old one of Lady
Chetwynde. Yet how was it that he had become thus associated with two
such events as these? By what strange fatality had he and Obed thus
found a common ground of interest in one another--a ground where the
one was the assailant and betrayer, the other the savior and
defender?

Such thoughts as these perplexed Obed, and he could not find an
answer to them. An answer might certainly have been given by the man
himself at his side, but Obed did not deign to question him; for,
somehow, he felt that at the bottom of all this lay that strange
secret which Miss