She smiled stealthily to herself. She had a great faith in Caspar Brooke's powers for good or evil. To have him upon her side made her support with equanimity the thought that she and Francis might suffer if Oliver did not marry a rich wife. He would see that they did not want. And she should behold the darling wish of her heart gratified at last. For had she not ardently desired, ever since the day of Alice's betrayal and Alice's death, to see that false betrayer punished? Caspar Brooke would punish him, and she should be the instrument through which his punishment had come about.
"I should like to thrash the scoundrel within an inch of his life," said Mr. Brooke.
"There is very little time before the wedding, if you mean to do anything before then," said Mrs. Trent, softly.
Caspar started. "Yes, that is true. I must see him to-night. H'm"—he stopped short, oppressed by the difficulties of the situation. Had he not better speak to Maurice Kenyon at once? But, as he recollected, Maurice had gone out of town, and would not be back until half an hour or so before the hour fixed for his sister's wedding. The ceremony was to be performed at an unusually early hour—ten o'clock in the morning—for divers reasons: one being that Ethel wanted to begin her journey to Paris in very good time. She had never been anxious for a fashionable wedding, and had decided to have no formal wedding breakfast, and there was no reason for delaying the proceedings until a later hour. But, as Mr. Brooke reflected, unless he went to Ethel Kenyon herself there was little time in which to take action. Indeed, it seemed to him for a moment almost better to let the past sink into oblivion, and to hope that Oliver would be kind and faithful to the beautiful and gifted girl who was, apparently, the choice of his heart.
But it was not to Mrs. Trent's interest that this mood should last. "Poor Miss Kenyon!" she said, in quietly regretful tones. "I'm sorry for her, poor young lady. No mother or father to look after her, and no friend even who dares to tell her the truth!"
The words stung Caspar. He thought of his own daughter Lesley, placed in Ethel's position, and he felt that he could not let Ethel go unwarned. And yet—could he believe Oliver Trent to be such a scoundrel on the mere strength of this woman's story! It might be all a baseless slander, fabricated for the sake of obtaining money. And there was so little time before poor Ethel's wedding!
While he hesitated, Mary Trent saw her opportunity, and seized it.
"If you want to see Oliver Trent," she said, "he is coming to our lodgings this very night. I have been to Mrs. Romaine's house to ask him to come to my husband who wants a few words with him. If you'll undertake to come there, I'll let you see what sort of a man Mr. Oliver Trent is, and then you can judge for yourself whether or no he is a fit husband for Miss Kenyon, or a fit lover for Miss Lesley Brooke."
Caspar raised his hand hastily as if to entreat silence. "Tell me where you live," he said shortly, "and the hour when he will be there."
"Half-past nine o'clock this evening, sir. The place—oh, you know the place well enough: it is in Whitechapel."