"Oh! yes, yes," sobbed Miss Darling, the tears running down her face. "She has been arrested, she is in prison—she will die. She is innocent. I know she is innocent, I know it."
"Arrested!" cried Philip again, unable to grasp more than this one direct fact, and quite unmindful of Dick's tears and protestations. "Arrested! And for what?"
"Oh, that is the most terrible thing of all," wept Dick. "It's so horrible I don't know how to tell you; she is arrested on a suspicion of murder."
"My God!" cried Philip. "What horrible mockery is this?"
"Oh, will you come, will you come?" implored Dick, wringing her hands. "Oh, only think, she is shut up there all alone. She has been in that hateful place for hours, for days, while we have all been away dancing, and flirting, and being happy and amused; and she has been alone—all alone—shut up in prison with no one to go to her, no one to help her. Oh, I could beat myself for never knowing, never dreaming of her trouble!"
"It is horrible," said Philip again, in the same low, inward voice in which he had spoken since Dick's first outburst. "It is infamous. Who has done this thing? Who has brought this charge?"
He spoke sternly, and looked at Dick with eyes that burned her very soul.
"The Russian Count," she answered slowly. "Vladimir Mellikoff."
Mr. Tremain made no reply. He turned abruptly away from her and walked over to the window, and stood there looking out into the night.
The street was a quiet one at all times, and now even a solitary passing footstep echoed far ahead in the absolute silence. But had it been mid-day, with its roar and rumble of traffic, Philip would have heeded it as little as he now heeded the stillness and desertion.