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. Try and describe to me what occurred after you left home. What happened to you?’

She shook her head sadly.

'I can't tell you,' she said at last, speaking quite rationally. 'I really can't.'

'But you must recollect something, dear?' I asked. 'Your chatelaine was found dropped from a train on the line near Welwyn station, on the Great Northern Railway.'

'On the railway?' she repeated slowly. 'Ah!'

'That brings back something to your memory, dearest, does it not?' I inquired anxiously, for I now felt convinced that she remembered something regarding her loss.

'Yes—but—but—well, I can't tell you about it, Claude.'

'You can't, dearest—or do you mean that you decline to tell me! Which?'

For a few moments she was again silent. Her blank white face bad become almost as its own self, with that sweet, calm smile I had known so well.

'I must decline to tell you,' she slowly answered at last. 'I'm sorry—but I—I only ask your forgiveness, Claude.'

'What is there for me to forgive?' I cried dismayed. 'You disappeared. Everybody feared foul play—and'

'There was foul play!' she interrupted in a hoarse voice.

'By whom?'

'By somebody.'

'You know who were your enemies?' I asked quickly. 'You must know, indeed.'