“Gone?”
“She never met me this morning as she promised. I waited an hour—more. Then I grew frightened and went to her lodgings. She had left the evening before, saying she wasn’t coming back. A man came to fetch her and she went away with him. Do you understand?—with him!”
“With whom?” I asked, in a confused, reeling manner; yet I knew.
“I want you to tell me.”
“How can I, Duke?”
“I want you to say what you have done with your trust? There has been something going on of late—some secret kept from me. Where is that brother of yours?”
“I know no more than you do.”
“I shall find out before long. The cunning doesn’t exist that could keep him hidden from me if—if he is a party to this. Why are you silent? I can read it in your eyes. They have met, and it must have been through you.”
“Before God, it wasn’t!”
“Then they have!” He put his hand to his face and staggered as if he had been struck there.