"How dare he?" she murmured, at the first outbreak of his passionate complaint; but, as she went on reading, the glow of pity melted her woman's heart, and only once more she protested, in words, against the audacious candor of her lover.
"How could he?"
And as she finished, and her head was bowed upon her hands, and upon the letter which lay between them, her lips sought out the words which he had written last of all, as though they would carry a message of forgiveness—and consolation to the spirit which hovered beneath it.
CHAPTER XI.
SYDNEY GIVES ADVICE.
The day after Sydney Campion had heard Brooke Dalton's story of the disappearance of Alan Walcott's wife had been a very busy one for him. He had tried to get away from his work at an early hour, in order that he might pay one of his rare visits to Maple Cottage, and combine with his inquiries into the welfare of his mother certain necessary cautions to his sister Lettice. It was indispensable that she should be made to understand what sort of man this precious poet was known to be, and how impossible it had become that a sister of his should continue to treat him as a friend.
Why, the fellow might be—probably was—a murderer! And, if not that, at all events there was such a mystery surrounding him, and such an indelible stain upon his character, that he, Sydney Campion, could not suffer her to continue that most objectionable acquaintance.
But his duties conspired with his dinner to prevent the visit from being made before the evening, and it was nearly eight o'clock when he arrived at Hammersmith. He had dined with a friend in Holborn, and had taken a Metropolitan train at Farringdon Street, though, as a rule, he held himself aloof from the poison-traps of London, as he was pleased to call the underground railway, and travelled mostly in the two-wheeled gondolas which so lightly float on the surface of the stream above.
As he was about to leave the station, his eye encountered a face and figure which attracted him, and made him almost involuntarily come to a standstill. It was Milly Harrington, Lettice's maid, who, having posted her mistress' letter to Alan Walcott, had turned her listless steps in this direction.