A gleam of furtive joy crossed the other’s face, and instantly vanished again.
‘Has that struck you?’ he said, and seemed about to add something more. But he restrained himself, and merely added: ‘The less you and I talk about it the better, perhaps. Coming out?’
And they left the chambers together.
But though Tressamer ceased to discuss the subject with his friend, he could not dismiss it from his mind. The sparkling wit, the wild, extravagant humour, for which he had been famous, seemed to have withered up in the furnace of his terrible grief. He lunched with Prescott in almost dead silence, and as soon as it was over got up hurriedly and disappeared.
He had truthfully described himself as having been deep in the case from its commencement. When the news of what had happened at Porthstone reached the town of Abertaff he was walking in the High Street alone. He saw the unusual excitement, and meeting an acquaintance, learned from him that Miss Lewis had been murdered.
‘And they say it was done by her companion, a girl named Owen,’ added the man.
Tressamer turned white, gasped for breath, and cried out loudly:
‘It’s a lie! I swear she is innocent!’
In another moment he had darted off to a cab-stand, and was on his way to the station.