Anna the Adventuress

She threw herself into an easy chair. She was unusually pale, and her

eyes were brilliant. Never had she seemed to him so much like Anna.

"You needn't be worried," she said quietly. "The conventions do not

matter one little bit. You will agree with me when you have heard what

I have to say. For me that is all over and done with."

"Lady Ferringhall! Anna!" he exclaimed.

She fixed her brilliant eyes upon him.

"Suppose you call me by my proper name," she said quietly. "Call me

Annabel."

He started back as though he had been shot.

"Annabel?" he exclaimed. "That is your sister's name."

"No, mine."

It came upon him like a flash. Innumerable little puzzles were

instantly solved. He could only wonder that this amazing thing had

remained so long a secret to him. He remembered little whispered

speeches of hers, so like the Annabel of Paris, so unlike the woman he

loved, a hundred little things should have told him long ago.

Nevertheless it was overwhelming.

"But your hair," he gasped.

"Dyed!"

"And your figure?"

"One's _corsetiere_ arranges that. My friend, I am only grieved that

you of all others should have been so deceived. I have seen you with

Anna, and I have not known whether to be glad or sorry. I have been in

torment all the while to know whether it was to Anna or to Annabel

that you were making love so charmingly. Nigel, do you know that I

have been very jealous?"

He avoided the invitation of her eyes. He was indeed still in the

throes of his bewilderment.

"But Sir John?" he exclaimed. "What made you marry him? What made you

leave Paris without a word to any one? What made you and your sister

exchange identities?"

"There is one answer to all those questions, Nigel," she said, with a

nervous little shudder. "It is a hateful story. Come close to me, and

let me hold your hand, dear. I am a little afraid."

There was a strange look in her face, the look of a frightened child.

Ennison seemed to feel already the shadow of tragedy approaching. He

stood by her side, and he suffered her hands to rest in his.

"You remember the man in Paris who used to follow me about--Meysey

Hill they called him?"

He nodded.

"Miserable bounder," he murmured. "Turned out to be an impostor, too."

"He imposed on me," Annabel continued. "I believed that he was the

great multi-millionaire. He worried me to marry him. I let him take me

to the English Embassy, and we went through some sort of a ceremony. I

thought it would be magnificent to have a great house in Paris, and

more money than any other woman. Afterwards we started for _dejeuner_

in a motor. On the way he confessed. He was not Meysey Hill, but an

Englishman of business, and he had only a small income. Every one took

him for the millionaire, and he had lost his head about me. I--well, I

lost my temper. I struck him across the face, twisted the steering

wheel of the motor, sprang out myself, and left him for dead on the

road with the motor on top of him. This is the first act."