While he spoke he became aware that she was looking at him as she had looked in the drawing-room.
"Then you refuse positively to let me send Miss Meade away?"
"I refuse positively, once and for all."
Her blank, uncomprehending stare followed him as he turned and went out of the room.
CHAPTER IV
The Martyr
A fortnight later light was thrown on Blackburn's perplexity by a shrewd question from Mrs. Timberlake. For days he had been groping in darkness, and now, in one instant, it seemed to him that his discovery leaped out in a veritable blaze of electricity. How could he have gone on in ignorance? How could he have stumbled, with unseeing eyes, over the heart of the problem?
"David," said the housekeeper bluntly, "don't you think that this thing has been going on long enough?" They were in the library, and before putting the question, she had closed the door and even glanced suspiciously at the windows.
"This thing?" He looked up from his newspaper, with the vague idea that she was about to discourse upon our diplomatic correspondence with Germany.
"I am not talking about the President's notes." Her voice had grown rasping. "He may write as many as he pleases, if they will make the Germans behave themselves without our having to go to war. What I mean is the way Mary is eating her heart out. Haven't you noticed it?"
"I have been worried about her for some time." He laid the paper down on the desk. "But I haven't been able to discover what is the matter."