The Mysterious Mr. Miller

Darkness was now falling, yet there was still sufficient light to reveal her wondrous beauty. As she stood before me in her pale grey dress and large black hat I recognised that she had grown even more beautiful than she had been in the days of our love romance. Her figure was perfect in its symmetry; her countenance so lovely that even the uncommon beauty of Lucie paled before her. Those blue eyes that I knew were so unfathomable were turned upon me, and even there I saw in them the love-light that was unmistakable, that expression mysterious and indescribable that no woman is ever able to feign – the look, often unconscious, that tells a man that he is the object of passionate affection.

My heart leapt within me with wild ecstasy, yet I could not speak.

I only grasped her hand more tightly. Then in order to cover the emotion that I saw was rising within her, I turned and made a casual remark to Lucie that it was almost time we returned.

“Of course,” she said quickly, recognising the situation. “You two have much to talk over alone. Let us go.”

And together we moved forward along the path by, which my lost love had returned to me.

How can I describe to you my feelings in those moments? Sometimes I found myself doubting whether it was not all some dream or some strange chimera of my unbalanced brain. But I held her hand, and found that it was real flesh and blood. My well-beloved still lived; she for whom I had mourned so long had returned, even more sweet and beautiful.

The village bells were pealing, the ringers practising probably.

“Hark!” I said, as I walked at her side, treading on air from sheer buoyancy of spirits. “They are joy bells, Ella. They ring because you have returned to me.” She laughed, turning those dear, wide-open eyes to mine, and said: —

“How often have I wondered where you were, and whether – ” and she paused without completing the sentence.

“Whether what?”

“Well – whether you had, after all, forgotten me,” she said. “I never dreamed that you believed me dead. I thought, of course, that if you really loved me, as you used to say, that you would surely write to me or endeavour to see me when you knew that, after all, I had not married that man.”

“Then you did not marry Blumenthal after all!” I cried quickly. “Was the engagement broken off?”

“Yes. Because of his ill-health. He released me when the doctors told him the truth – that he had only a few months to live. He died three months later.” And she grew silent again, and yet it seemed as if she wished to tell me something further. Indeed she was about to do so, but checked herself.

“Well!” I asked, in order to allow her an opportunity to speak.

“He was generous to me after all,” she went on. “The day before he died he sent for me, and I went and sat at his bedside. He knew his end was near, and after he had expressed deep regret that he had come between us – for he knew quite well that I loved you very dearly – he drew from beneath his pillow a large sealed envelope, making me promise to take it home, but not to open it until the day after his decease. Next day he died, and on the day following I broke the seals and discovered, to my amazement and joy, that he had presented me with the mortgage deeds of Wichenford. Some years before my father had mortgaged our old home to him, and those very deeds he had made my price as his wife.”

“Then for the great injustice he did you, Ella, the fellow endeavoured to atone,” I said. “The mortgage, therefore, does not now exist.”

“Of course not. I gave the deeds at once to my father, and they were that day destroyed, much to the chagrin of the heirs of the estate, who had long been scheming to become possessors of Wichenford.”

“A most generous action,” Lucie declared.

“Yes, whatever I may have said of him, and however much I have hated him in the past, I cannot help acknowledging that before his death he rendered me the greatest service.”

“Yet you were prepared to perform a noble self-sacrifice, Ella,” I said, in a low, serious voice. “You kept your secret, and before we parted told me what was untrue. But Lucie has revealed to me the astounding truth. Only to-night, for the first time, have I realised all that your self-martyrdom meant – only to-night have I discovered that, after all, you still loved me just as fondly and with a passion just as fierce as my own – that even though engaged to Blumenthal your dear heart was still my own.”

Chapter Fourteen

Cruel Destiny

James Harding Miller was seated alone in a long cane deck-chair on the terrace that ran the whole length of the beautiful old house. He had drawn it out through the French windows of the smoking-room, and was idly drawing out a cigar in the semi-darkness.

“Father!” cried Lucie, rushing forward as we approached, “do you recognise our visitor?”

Instantly he jumped up, exclaiming: —

“Why Ella – Ella after all this time! Minton told me that you had called and had gone in search of Lucie. And how is your father?”

“He’s very well, thanks,” was my love’s reply. “I left him at Swanage, and drove out to see if Lucie was at home.”

“And Mr Leaf,” exclaimed Lucie. “I think you have met him before, father?”

“Certainly,” Miller said pleasantly, extending his hand to me. “You are staying here, in Studland?”

“For a couple of days or so,” I answered.

“You mentioned that you had met my daughter,” he remarked, and then after welcoming Ella and pressing her to remain there the night, he ordered Minton to bring us chairs, and pushed the cigars across to me.

To Miller, Ella gave the same account of herself as she had given to us. The identity of the person who had spread the false report concerning her death – a report which had passed from mouth to mouth among all her friends – was a mystery, and Miller was just as surprised and just as pleased as ourselves at her reappearance.

As we sat there in the starlight I listened to Ella’s account of her free, open-air life in County Galway, for Wichenford was still let to the wealthy American; and her father, she said, preferred Ireland as a place of residence when he could not live on his own estate.

“But you never wrote to us,” Miller remarked. “Often we have spoken of you, and regretted that you were no longer with us. Indeed, your portrait is still yonder in the drawing-room. Only the day before yesterday Mr Leaf noticed it, and inquired whether I knew you.”

My love’s eyes met mine in a long wistful look.

“I believed that you were always abroad,” she answered him. “And – well, to tell the truth, I had an idea that you had altogether forgotten me.”

“Forgotten you, dear?” cried Lucie. “We have never forgotten you. How could I ever forget my dearest friend – and more especially when I knew what a terrible self-sacrifice you had made?”

“What’s that?” inquired Miller, quickly interested.

“Shall I tell him?” asked Lucie, turning to me.

“If you wish. It is only right, I think, that Mr Miller should know the truth.”

Therefore, receiving Ella’s consent as well, Lucie explained to her father how I had been her friend’s secret lover, and how she had broken off our affection by force of circumstance, sacrificing herself in order to save her father from ruin.

He listened to his daughter in surprise, then sighing heavily, turned to Ella, saying sympathetically: —

“How noble of you! Ah! what you both must have suffered! You need not tell me, either of you, for I know myself what it is to lose the woman one loves. I recollect my poor dear wife and still adore her memory.” And this from a man who was suspected of being leader of a gang of international criminals!

“The bitterness of the past,” I said, “will perhaps render the joy of the present all the sweeter.”

“It certainly ought to. Surely your delight at finding Ella alive and well when you, like all of us, believed her dead, must be beyond bounds?”

“It is! It is!” I cried. “I, who believed that she preferred wealth to my honest love; I, who have these long years been filled with a thousand regrets and reproaches, now know the truth. I have misjudged her!”

The soft hand of my well-beloved sought my wrist and gripped it. That action conveyed more to me than any words of hers could have done.

Presently it grew chilly, and we went into the long old-fashioned drawing-room, where we found Miss Miller, a pleasant grey-faced old lady, in a cap with cherry-coloured ribbons, idling over a book.

Upon the table still stood the portrait of my dear heart, the picture which only two days before had awakened within me such bitter remembrances. The silk-shaded lamps shed a soft light over everything, illuminating for the first time my Ella’s beautiful face. In the twilight by the river I had seen that she had become even more beautiful, yet the light that now fell upon her revealed a calmness and sweetness of expression that I had not hitherto been able to distinguish. She was far more lovely than I had believed – more beautiful even than in those days of our secret love.

Those great blue eyes looked out upon me with that same love-flame as of old – eyes that were clear and bright as a child’s, the glance of which would have made any man’s head reel – cheeks that were more delicately moulded than the marbles of Michael Angelo, and a grace that was perfect, complete, adorable.