The Blue Diamond Read Online Free PDF

to enlighten us. She is very pretty, Arthur.”
    â€œOne of the most beautiful women I ever saw in my life,” Sir Arthur agreed warmly.
    Lady Laura looked doubtful.
    â€œOne can hardly judge of that to-night, I think. Does she remind you of anyone, Arthur?”
    â€œCertainly not!” Hargreave’s tone was decisive. “I have never seen anyone in the least like her before.”
    â€œWhen she looked at me I could not help fancying that I saw a faint resemblance to some one, but I cannot place it just now,” Lady Laura went on musingly as they turned back.
    Suddenly the deep-fringed eyelids were raised.
    â€œHow very—very kind you all are to me!” the girl murmured glancing round the little group, her eyes resting for one second on Sir Arthur’s troubled face. “So very, very kind!”

Chapter Three
    â€œW ELL, IT IS one of the queerest things I ever heard of!” Garth Davenant’s dark face looked puzzled. “You say the girl cannot give any account of herself at all?” Mavis shook her head.
    â€œNo, she has for the time being entirely lost her memory. Dr. Grieve says she has had some great shock, and that she is in a state of intense nervous prostration.”
    â€œGrieve is a muff, in my opinion,” remarked Mr. Davenant irreverently. “If the girl is as bad as you say, she ought to have other advice.”
    â€œOh, I don’t think so!” Mavis dissented. “Dr. Grieve says that what she needs is absolute rest and careful nursing; then he thinks her memory will come back to her gradually.”
    â€œUmph!” said Garth sceptically. “And where is I this rest and nursing to be obtained, may I ask? Lady Laura will hardly wish to keep her indefinitely at the Manor, I conclude?”
    â€œShe will stay with us until she is well,” Mavis said indignantly. “Don’t be so hard-hearted, Garth. I am sure mother will not let her go; she thanked us all so prettily this morning for what we had done for her, and; seemed so distressed to think of the trouble she was giving, and I fell quite in love with her.”
    Garth pulled his brown moustache moodily as he looked at her flushed face. The two, having met at the park gates, were now walking up to the Manor together, and Garth had been listening with amazement to Mavis’s story of the discovery of the unknown girl in the park the preceding evening.
    â€œWas there absolutely no clue to her identity about her clothes?” he asked after a pause.
    â€œHer things were all marked ‘Hilda’ or with a big ‘H’ which means the same thing. We think she must have been staying somewhere near and have had some great trouble,” Mavis went on speculatively. “We have no idea what it might have been, but I cannot help wondering whether she had quarrelled with the man she loved; perhaps he had played her false in some way or other. I don’t think anything could be quite so bad as that, Garth,” with a shy, trustful glance. “I—I know it would make me very miserable.”
    Garth Davenant’s eyes were very tender as he looked down at her; he caught her slender fingers in his. “My darling!” he whispered.
    Mavis blushed prettily as she drew them away, but she was too thoroughly in earnest to be turned away from her subject.
    â€œSo, you see,” she went on after a moment, “that is a reason why I feel that I ought to be especially good to this poor girl. Think of all that she may have suffered before her brain gave way under the strain and left everything a blank. I must do what I can for her; if one is very happy oneself one ought to try to help other people. Don’t you think so, Garth?”
    â€˜Y–es!” Garth hesitated. “Only, Mavis, I cannot help saying that, though things may certainly be capable of a perfectly innocent interpretation the whole affair is so extraordinary that one cannot help