"This is truly remarkable," he now said, with a quietness born of deep feeling. "You relate the conditions as if you had experienced them yourself. Could I have imagined for a moment that the investigation was to be conducted with such insight and comprehension, why, I should never have fled. What slaves we are to impulse!'
"Aye, to the young it is the refinement of wisdom, as my friend Mr. Follett would say."
"There was yet another element augmenting my feelings at that moment," Clay went on; "do you care to hear?"
"Assuredly. I should like to hear any conclusions you may have formed."
"Well, that very morning Miss Westbrook and I had had a conversation concerning Señor de Sanchez, to which his sudden taking off and the manner of it were an awful climax. Never, never again will I lightly consider the chances of a person's living or dying; the dénouement was like an answer to an unexpressed wish."
"But now, then, Mr. Fairchild," interpellated Converse, but stopped to ask, "You know, of course, about Miss Joyce's illness?"
"I do; but I am miserably in doubt regarding its seriousness."
"The conditions are all in her favor: youth, health, splendid constitution; so you need not worry about that. What I started to say is, that I wish to direct your attention to the mainspring of the whole matter. To-night I must leave the city for a time, and before I go I want to know what it was she saw in the hall. It was while striving to tell this that she collapsed. Poor girl; I hope that some time she may find it in her heart to forgive my persistence."
For a bit the natural seriousness of the young man's countenance was deepened by the evident care with which he was framing a reply. The visitor awaited that reply with his customary impassiveness; but Charlotte, who had been following the conversation with rapt interest, now suddenly leant forward and watched her brother with some anxiety.
"Captain," Clay began at length, "if Joyce—if Miss Westbrook and I had had better opportunities of discussing the matter since the death of De Sanchez, we might have come to a better understanding; but I was haunted with an abnormal fear of discovery, and I shrank from exposing myself unnecessarily, because I didn't know what dire disaster it would mean for her and the Doctor." Of a sudden his eyes kindled. "I saw her but three times," he concluded, "and then only briefly."