“I am not naturally patient; and my rearing as the only child of an enormously rich man has perhaps added to my impetuousness.  In a burst of temper one day, I broke the engagement, gave him back his ring and did a number of other rather silly things.  But he was so tragic in his despair—­so utterly broken hearted and white—­that I immediately relented and we patched the matter up once more.  That he loved me was plain; but that he could not marry me—­for some mysterious reason—­was even plainer.

“After this I began to notice a change in him.  He was rather silent and given to reverie; he seldom laughed.  Sometimes he was haggard and so wrought up, apparently, that he could scarcely contain himself.  He would pace the floor, evidently with little realization as to what he was doing.  Once he was really dreadfully agitated.  I calmed him as well as I could, and he sat for a long time, thinking deeply.  As I watched him, he sprang to his feet and dashing his fist upon a table, cried out, passionately: 

“‘The black-hearted rascal!  He’s mocking me!’

“Then like a flash he realized the strangeness of his conduct, and with anxious, alarmed face, asked my pardon.  I felt that this was an opportunity to put an end to a situation that was growing intolerable.  My persistent questioning gained me something, but, on the whole, not a great deal.

“The thing that was troubling him was a business matter.  In some way he was in the hands of some one—­these are the indefinite threads that I gathered—­a mocking, jeering, smiling someone whom he hated, but from whom he could not free himself.

“I began to tell him that there could be nothing strong enough in itself to prevent our happiness; but he stopped me in such a way that I did not feel inclined to continue.  In an outburst, filled with denunciations of his enemy and protestations of devotion to myself, I caught the name of Hume.  He had dropped this inadvertently.  I knew it instantly because of the swift look that he gave me.  But I allowed no hint of what I thought to show in my face.  He was more subdued during the remainder of his stay; the mentioning of the name had startled him, and he was doubtless afraid that his state of mind would lead him into further indiscretions.

“As you may suppose, the name—­the first tangible thing that I had learned—­was of much interest to me.  If I could but find out who this person was, I could probably get to the bottom of the matter.”

At this point Miss Vale paused; and Ashton-Kirk noted her head lift proudly.

“Perhaps,” she continued, “it might be thought that I had no right to make such an effort in a matter which Mr. Morris saw fit to keep from me.  Were you thinking that?  But I am not a silent sufferer.  I usually make an end of annoying things without delay.  And I would have done so in this case long before, but I was in love; and I could not bear to see Allan suffer by my insistence.