"Ah, what indeed?" answered Miss Hildreth, slowly. "Fathom her motives, Philip, and you will lay bare the secret of my arrest."
"Patricia," he cried again, strangely moved and excited by her words and manner, and by the sudden return of that vague, intangible influence, evoked by the mere mention of Mdlle. Lamien's name, that had from the first played so distinct a part in his intimacy with her, "Patricia, what do you mean? Explain yourself. What can Adèle Lamien have to do with you?"
"Ah, what indeed?" she answered, in the same measured tones, still looking at him earnestly. "What indeed? All—or nothing,—Philip. Simply that."
"I must know more," he exclaimed, almost roughly. "You must tell me what you mean. I must find her."
"That may prove more difficult than you imagine," answered Miss Hildreth, quietly, and as she said the words, Woods the warder entered, and Philip understood the end of his interview had come.
He got up mechanically and held out his hand. "It is best I should go for a little while," he said. "I will come back again. After all, we have settled very little."
"I should say we had settled a great deal," she answered, with another of those quick, mocking smiles.
Then she bade him good-bye; and it was not until he had walked up the longer half of Broadway, that Mr. Tremain remembered two things. Patricia had calmly ignored his outstretched hand, and he had forgotten to inquire of the superintendent the nature of Mdlle. Lamien's complicity in the charge brought against Miss Hildreth.