“I was never farther from smiling than I am at this moment,” said Leonard quietly.
“Do you know what I would do if—if the squire had left me any money?” went on Jack, fiercely; “I would spend every penny of it in searching for her. I’d have a hundred—a thousand detectives at work. I’d never give them rest night or day till they found her.”
“And then?” said Leonard.
Jack groaned and lit his pipe. Leonard looked at him.
“I thought you had gone to call on Lady Earlsley,” he said.
Jack looked very much as if he really meant to knock him down, and marched off to bed.
When he came in to breakfast the next morning Leonard noticed that he was dressed in proper walking attire, instead of the loose, free and easy, well-worn suit of cheviot, but he said nothing. Jack looked up.
“You are staring at my get-up, Len. Well, I’ll do it; but mind it is only to please you. What should I care what she thinks? though I ought to do it, I know. I’ll call and thank her, and then let there be an end of it. I can’t bear any chaff of that sort even from you, old fellow.”
Leonard nodded without a word, for he saw that the once frank face had lost its careless sang froid expression, and looked harassed and even haggard.
Jack smoked a pipe in silence, watching Leonard’s rapidly moving pen; then, without a word, went out.