“You can have all the help I can give, Lord Lorriston. What is it?”
“I was vain enough and foolish enough to boast two years ago that I hardly knew trouble even by name. I humbly beg pardon of Heaven for my boast.”
He laid a packet of papers on the table.
“The mail came in yesterday. I read the announcement of it in the papers; it has brought news that will most surely kill my daughter.”
Kenelm’s heart gave one great bound.
“He knows nothing yet,” he thought, and the idea was a reprieve to him.
“Here are four letters,” continued the earl, “and they all announce the same sad intelligence—the death of Sir Ronald Alden.”
It seemed to Kenelm that the world itself was coming to an end. “Lady Hermione a murderess—Sir Ronald dead.”
He repeated the words slowly, almost bewildered.
“Ronald dead! Oh, Lord Lorriston, can it be true?”