"No. I will give you your due," she declared. "You never do flirt. That is why I like you."
"Thanks for your candor, Miss Leithcourt," I said.
"Only," she added, "you seem smitten with Elma's charms."
"I think she's extremely pretty," I remarked, with the photograph still in my hand. "Do you ever see her now?"
"Never," she replied. "Since the day I left school we have never met. She was several years younger than myself, and I heard that a week after I left Chichester her people came and took her away. Where she is now I have no idea. Her people lived somewhere in Durham. Her father was a doctor."
Her reply disappointed me. Yet I had, at least, retained knowledge of the name of the original of the picture, and from the photographer I might perhaps discover her address, for to me it seemed that she was somehow intimately connected with those mysterious yachtsmen.
What Muriel told me concerning her, I did not doubt for a single instant. Yet it was certainly more than a coincidence that a copy of the picture which had created such a deep impression upon me should be preserved in her own little boudoir as a souvenir of a devoted school-friend.
"Then you have heard absolutely nothing as to her present position or whereabouts--whether she is married, for instance?"
"Ah!" she cried mischievously. "You betray yourself by your own words. You have fallen in love with her, I really believe, Mr. Gregg. If she knew, she'd be most gratified--or at least, she ought to be."
At which I smiled, preferring that she should adopt that theory in preference to any other.
She spoke frankly, as a pure honest girl would speak. She was not jealous, but she nevertheless resented--as women do resent such things--that I should fall in love with a friend's photograph.
There was a mystery surrounding that torn picture; of that I was absolutely certain. The remembrance of that memorable evening when I had dined on board the _Lola_ arose vividly before me. Why had the girl's portrait been so ruthlessly destroyed and the frame turned with its face to the wall? There was some reason--some distinct and serious motive in it. Had Muriel told me the truth, I wondered, or was she merely seeking to shield the suspected man who was her lover?