The Mysterious Mr. Miller by William Le Queux

The "Lion" Inn was a pleasant, old-fashioned little hostelry overlooking the bay, with Bournemouth beyond the distant haze. My room was small and clean, with white dimity curtains and hangings, and framed religious texts upon the walls. As I sat at the window in the hour before my dinner was ready, I reflected upon the strange incidents of those past few days -- a chain of curious circumstances that seemed to enmesh and to entangle me.

Lucie Miller -- the girl whose peril was such a mysterious and yet deadly one -- had actually known my Ella. That very fact seemed somehow as a further link between us. What, I wondered, did she know of those later days of my dead love's life? To me they were shrouded in mystery.