She gave him the address. He cast a keen, sharp glance at her face as he took it down. "Not a pleasant neighborhood," he said gravely. "May I ask why you have taken a room in that locality?"
She shook her head. "I did not take it," she said. "My husband took it before I found him, and I was obliged to stay. Francis is ill—I cannot get him away."
"Can I do anything to help——" Caspar was beginning but she interrupted him with almost surprising vehemence.
"Oh, no, no. I would not take anything from you. I did not come for that. I came to see if I could save Miss Lesley and Miss Kenyon from misery, not to beg—either for myself or him."
The earnestness of her tone took from Mr. Brooke a certain uneasy suspicion which had begun to steal over him: a suspicion that she was using him as a tool for her own ends, that her real motives had been concealed from him. Even when she had gone—and she went without making any attempt to see Lesley or Miss Brooke—he could not rid himself altogether of this suggestion; for with her sad voice no longer echoing in his ears, with her deep-set eyes looking no longer into his face, he found it easier to doubt and to suspect than to place implicit faith in the story that she had told him.
Lesley had heard of Kingston's reappearance, and was very much surprised to find that she was not called upon to interview her runaway attendant. Still more was she surprised when at last she heard the front door shut, and learned from Sarah that the woman had gone without a word. So much amazed was she, that shortly before dinner she stole into her father's study and attempted to cross-examine him, though with small result.
"Father, Sarah says that Kingston has been to see you."
"Yes, she has," said Caspar, briefly. He was writing away as if for dear life, with his left hand grasping his beard, and his pipe lying unfilled upon the table—two signs of dire haste, as Lesley had by this time learned to know. She remained silent, therefore, feeling herself an intruder.
"What do you want to know, my dear?" said her father at last, in a quiet, business-like tone. He went on writing all the time.
"Is she coming back to us?"