Low as she spoke, he caught the words and turned. But for his voice, Sydney hardly would have known him.
The light of a pale spring evening fell upon his face through the open doorway of the jeweller’s shop, and showed up pitilessly the wreck he had made of it. His eyes were bloodshot and furtive, and the lines had deepened round them, while his hair showed very grey above the ears. He looked to-day far older than his forty-one years warranted.
He made an uncertain movement forward. Katharine drew away: “Come, Sydney!”
They left the shop, but, once outside, the younger girl paused, looking back.
Sir Algernon had followed them into the street, and was gazing after them as though he wished to speak. Sydney noted the shabbiness of his dress and the fact that he had not shaved that morning.
“Katharine,” she said, “won’t you hear what he has to say?”
He heard her and came forward. The hand with which he lifted his hat shook. Katharine drew herself away from him, but Sydney stood her ground.
“Thank you,” he said, “I only want you to give Quin a message from me. He wrote to me, you know, to tell me that he had Duncombe’s written confession of the part I’d played after that miserable race, but didn’t mean to publish it, or show me up. He’s treating me a long way better than I treated him. I want you to tell him that, if you will, and also tell him that he won’t be bothered by me any more. That evening I left St. Quentin Castle I had had a wire to tell me that I was practically ruined. The man of business to whom I had pinned my faith—as far as I ever pinned it upon anybody—had taken a leaf out of my book, and gone in for gambling—speculation rather. When he’d finished his own money he used mine, relying on the fact that I was too busy screwing poor old Quin to attend to my own affairs. Of course he thought he’d get it back; they always do! But he didn’t, and the shock killed him. That was what the wire told me, and it was that that made me so hard on Quin. To make him pay up then was my last chance, you see; but you baulked that! You won the game, and I drop it for the future. I’m going abroad somewhere now; tell Quin he’s done with me for good and all, and I have sold the watch I bought for you to pay my passage out. Good-bye, Miss Lisle.”
“I will tell St. Quentin,” Sydney answered gravely, holding out her hand. “Good-bye.”