But now--now--I saw her from a different standpoint; saw her enshrouded in a dark mystery, the clue to which eluded me. Only one belief I clung to with passionate conviction, as a drowning man clings to a straw. She loved me. I could not doubt that, remembering the expression of her wistful face as we parted under the portico so short a time ago, though it seemed like a lifetime. Had she planned her flight even then,--if flight it was,--and what else could it be?
My cogitations terminated abruptly for the moment as a heavy hand was laid on my shoulder, and a gruff voice said in my ear: "Come, none o' that, now! What are you up to?"
I turned and faced a burly policeman, whom I knew well. He recognized me, also, and saluted.
"Beg pardon; didn't know it was you, sir. Thought it was one of these here sooicides, or some one that had had--well, a drop too much."
He eyed me curiously. I dare say I looked, in my hatless and drenched condition, as if I might come under the latter category.
"It's all right," I answered, forcing a laugh. "I wasn't meditating a plunge in the river. My hat blew off, and when I looked after it I saw something that interested me, and stayed to watch."
It was a lame explanation and not precisely true. He glanced over the parapet in his turn. The rain was abating once more, and the light was growing as the clouds sped onwards. The moon was at full, and would only set at dawn.
"I don't see anything," he remarked. "What was it, sir? Anything suspicious?"
His tone inferred that it must have been something very much out of the common to have kept me there in the rain. Having told him so much I was bound to tell him more.
"A rowboat, with two or three people in it; going down-stream. That's unusual at this time of night--or morning--isn't it?"
"Was that all? It wasn't worth the wetting you've got, sir!"
"I don't see where the joke comes in," I said.
"Well, sir, you newspaper gents are always on the lookout for mysteries," he asserted, half apologetically. "There's nothing out of the way in a boat going up or down-stream at any hour of the day or night; or if there was the river police would be on its track in a jiffy. They patrol the river same as we walk our beat. It might have been one of their boats you saw, or some bargees as had been making a night of it ashore. If I was you, I'd turn in as soon as possible. 'Tain't good for any one to stand about in wet clothes."