XIII
"WE SHALL HAVE TO BEGIN AGAIN"
It was a leading question which I was not surprised to see accompanied by a very sharp look from beneath the cloudy wrap she had wound about her head.
"You suspect some one or something," continued Mrs. Carew, with a return of the indefinable manner which had characterized her in the beginning of our interview. "Whom? What?"
I should have liked to answer her candidly, and in the spirit, if not the words, of the prophet of old, but her womanliness disarmed me. With her eyes on me I could get no further than a polite acknowledgment of defeat.
"Mrs. Carew, I am all at sea. We shall have to begin again."
"Yes," she answered like an echo—was it sadly or gladly?—"you will have to begin again." Then with a regretful accent: "And I can not help you, for I am going to sail to-morrow. I positively must go. Cablegrams from the other side hurry me. I shall have to leave Mrs. Ocumpaugh in the midst of her distress."
"What time does your steamer sail, Mrs. Carew?"
"At five o'clock in the afternoon, from the Cunard docks."
"Nearly sixteen hours from now. Perhaps fate—or my efforts—will favor us before then with some solution of this disheartening problem. Let us hope so."