I cried out as I followed her, ’Winnie, for God’s sake don’t run that danger!’

‘No danger at all,’ she cried.  ’I know every rock as well as you know every boulder of Raxton Cliffs.’

I watched her poising herself on the ledge; it made me dizzy.  Her confidence, however, was so great that I began to feel she was safe; and after she had passed out of sight I returned to the llyn where we had breakfasted.

Sinfi’s music ceased, but Winifred did not return.  I sat down on the rock and tried to think, but soon found that the feat was impossible.  The turbulent waves of my emotion seemed to have washed my brain clear of all thoughts.  The mystery in connection with Sinfi was now as great as the mystery connected with the rescue of Winifred from the mattress in Primrose Court.  So numbed was my brain that I at last pinched myself to make sure that I was awake.  In doing this I seemed to feel in one of my coat pockets a hard substance.  Putting my hand into the pocket, I felt the sharp corner of a letter pricking between a finger and its nail.  The acute pain assured me that I was awake.  I pulled out the letter.  It was the one that the servant at the bungalow had given me in the early morning when I called to get my bath.  I read the address, which was in a handwriting I did not know:—­

’HENRY AYLWIN, ESQ.,
‘Carnarvon, North Wales.’

The Carnarvon postmark and the words written on the envelope, ’Try Capel Curig,’ showed the cause of the delay in the letter’s reaching me.  In the left-hand corner of the envelope were written the words ‘Very urgent.  Please forward immediately.’  I opened it, and found it to be a letter of great length.  I looked at the end and gave a start, exclaiming, ‘D’Arcy!’

XVI

D’ARCY’S LETTER

This is how the letter ran:—­

HURSTCOTE MANOR.

MY DEAR AYLWIN,

I have just learned by accident that you are somewhere in Wales.  I had gathered from paragraphs in the newspapers about you that you were in Japan, or in some other part of the East.

Miss Wynne and Sinfi Lovell are at this moment in Wales, and I write at once to furnish you with some facts in connection with Miss Wynne which it is important for you to know before you meet her.  I can imagine your amazement at learning that she you have lost so long has been staying here as my guest.  I will tell you all without more preamble.

One day, some little time after I parted from you in the streets of London, I chanced to go into Wilderspin’s studio, when I found him in great distress.  He told me that the beautiful model who had sat for his picture ‘Faith and Love’ had suddenly died.  The mother of the girl had on the previous day been in and told him that her daughter had died in one of the fits to which at intervals she had been subject.