Felix Krail!  The very name caused him to clench his hands.  Fortunately, he knew the truth, therefore that dastardly attempt upon the girl’s life should not go unpunished.  As he sat there chatting with her, admiring her refinement and innate daintiness, he made a vow within himself to seek out that cowardly fugitive and meet him face to face.

Felix Krail!  What could be his object in ridding the world of the daughter of Sir Henry Heyburn!  What would the man gain thereby?  He knew Krail too well to imagine that he ever did anything without a motive of gain.  So well did he play his cards always that the police could never lay hands upon him.  Yet his “friends,” as he termed them, were among the most dangerous men in all Europe—­men who were unscrupulous, and would hesitate at nothing in order to accomplish the coup which they had devised.

What was the coup in this particular instance?  Ay, that was the question.

CHAPTER XXXII

OUTSIDE THE WINDOW

Late on the following afternoon Gabrielle was seated at the old-fashioned piano in her aunt’s tiny drawing-room, her fingers running idly over the keys, her thoughts wandering back to the exciting adventure of the previous morning.  Her aunt was out visiting some old people in connection with the village clothing club, therefore she sat gloomily amusing herself at the piano, and thinking—­ever thinking.

She had been playing almost mechanically Berger’s “Amoureuse” valse and some dreamy music from The Merry Widow, when she suddenly stopped and sat back with her eyes fixed out of the window upon the cottages opposite.

Why was Mr. Hamilton in that neighbourhood?  He had given her no further information concerning himself.  He seemed to be disinclined to talk about his recent movements.  He had sprung from nowhere just at the critical moment when she was in such deadly peril.  Then, after their clothes had been dried, they had walked together as far as the little bridge at the entrance to Fotheringhay.

There he had stopped, bent gallantly over her hand, congratulated her upon her escape, and as their ways lay in opposite directions—­she back to Woodnewton and he on to Oundle—­they had parted.  “I hope, Miss Heyburn, that we may meet again one day,” he had laughed cheerily as he raised his hat, “Good-bye.”  Then he had turned away, and had been lost to view round the bend of the road.

She was safe.  That man whom she had known long ago under such strange circumstances, whom she would probably never see again, had been her rescuer.  Of this curious and romantic fact she was now thinking.

But where was Walter?  Why had he not replied to her letter?  Ah! that was the one thought which oppressed her always, sleeping and waking, day and night.  Why had he not written?  Would he never write again?

She had at first consoled herself with the thought that he was probably on the Continent, and that her letter had not been forwarded.  But as the days went on, and no reply came, the truth became more and more apparent that her lover—­the man whom she adored and worshipped—­had put her aside, had accepted her at her own estimate as worthless.