“You ought to have known it for certain.  I mean to say that, had I ever been engaged to my cousin, I should have been miserable at such a moment as this.  I never should have given him up because of the gross injustice done to him about the property.  But his disappearance in this dreadful way would, I think, have killed me.  As it is, I can think of nothing else, because he is my cousin.”

“It is very dreadful,” said Harry.  “Have you any idea what can have happened to him?”

“Not in the least.  Have you?”

“None at all, but—­”

“But what?”

“I was the last person who saw him.”

“You saw him last!”

“At least, I know no one who saw him after me.”

“Have you told them?”

“I have told no one but you.  I have come down here to Cheltenham on purpose to tell you.”

“Why me?” she said, as though struck with fear at such an assertion on his part.

“I must tell some one, and I have not known whom else to tell.  His father appears not at all anxious about him.  His brother I do not altogether trust.  Were I to go to these men, who are only looking after their money, I should be communicating with his enemies.  Your mother already regards me as his enemy.  If I told the police I should simply be brought into a court of justice, where I should be compelled to mention your name.”

“Why mine?”

“I must begin the story from the beginning.  One night I was coming home in London very late, about two o’clock, when whom should I meet in the street suddenly but Mountjoy Scarborough.  It came out afterward that he had then been gambling; but when he encountered me he was intoxicated.  He took me suddenly by the collar and shook me violently, and did his best to maltreat me.  What words were spoken I cannot remember; but his conduct to me was as that of a savage beast.  I struggled with him in the street as a man would struggle who is attacked by a wild dog.  I think that he did not explain the cause of his hatred, though, of course, my memory as to what took place at that moment is disturbed and imperfect; but I did know in my heart why it was that he had quarrelled with me.”

“Why was it?” Florence asked.

“Because he thought that I had ventured to love you.”

“No, no!” shrieked Florence; “he could not have thought that.”

“He did think so, and he was right enough.  If I have never said so before, I am bound at any rate to say it now.”  He paused for a moment, but she made him no answer.  “In the struggle between us he fell on the pavement against a rail;—­and then I left him.”

“Well?”

“He has never been heard of since.  On the following day, in the afternoon, I left London for Buston; but nothing had been then heard of his disappearance.  I neither knew of it nor suspected it.  The question is, when others were searching for him, was I bound to go to the police and declare what I had suffered from him that night?  Why should I connect his going with the outrage which I had suffered?”