She stepped back to elude him, but he caught her by the wrist.
"Look at me," he continued. "It took fifty years to make my hair gray; one day has made it white."
Eden succeeded in disengaging herself from his grasp, and she succeeded the more easily in that a servant unobserved by her, yet seen by Usselex, had entered the room. He loosed his hold at once and glanced at the man.
"What is it?" he asked. "No one rang."
"A letter, sir," the man answered; "it was to be delivered to you."
Usselex took the note and held it unexamined in his hand. Eden caught a glimpse of the superscription. The writing was her own. It was, she knew, the note which she had dispatched a half hour before. Meanwhile the servant had withdrawn.
"When I came home this afternoon," Usselex continued, "and found that you had gone, I could not understand——"
"You might have gone to the Ranleigh for information. Let me pass!"
"Why to the Ranleigh? surely——"
"To Mrs. Feverill, then, since you wish me to be explicit. Let me pass, I say."