Page:William Le Queux - The Czar's Spy.djvu/351

 CHAPTER XXXIII

JACK DURNFORD EXPLAINS SOMETHING

"THERE is a greater mystery surrounding that yacht, the Lola, than you have ever imagined, my dear old chap," declared Jack Durnford, looking me straight in the face. "When you told me about it on the quarter-deck that day outside Leghorn, I was half a mind to tell you what I knew. Only one fact prevented me — my disinclination to reveal my own secrets. I loved Muriel Leithcourt, yet, afloat as I was, I could never see her — I could not obtain from her own lips the explanation I desired. Yet I would not prejudge her — no, and I won't now!" he added with a fierce resolution.

"I love her," he went on," and she reciprocates my love. Ours is a secret engagement made in Malta two years ago, and yet you tell me that she has pledged herself to that fellow Woodroffe — the man known here in London as Dick Archer. I can't believe it — I really can't, old fellow. She could never write to me as she has done, urging patience and secrecy until my return."

"Unless, of course, she desired to gain time," I suggested.