ostmark 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.

Wilderspin, in his eccentric way, had always declared that the
model was not the woman's daughter. He did not think her, as I did,
to have been kidnapped; he believed her to be not a creature of flesh
and blood at all, but a spiritual body sent from heaven by his mother
in order that he might use her as a model. As to the woman Gudgeon,
who laid claim to be her mother, he thought she was suffering from a
delusion--a beneficent delusion--in supposing the model to be her
daughter. And now he thought that this beautiful phantom from the
spirit-world had been recalled because his picture was complete. When
I entered the studio he was just starting for the second time, as he
told me, to the woman's house, in the belief that the body of the
girl which he had seen lying on a mattress was a delusion--a
spiritual body, and must by this time have vanished.

I had reasons for wishing to prevent his going there and being again
brought into contact with the woman before I saw her myself. From my
first seeing the woman and the model, I had found it impossible