"Lady Moreham, I am not an inquisitive man, but several times I have been on the point of asking you a question." He could see that she shrank, but continued obliviously, "Have you any kinsman by the name of Duncan Glendower Moreham, from Kent, England?"
She turned with a gasp, white to the lips.
"Why?" she whispered with an effort, "Why?"
"Because," he returned, not looking at her, "I traveled and hunted with him one whole season, two years ago. I sometimes exchange letters with him, and have his address now. He seemed to me a restless, wretched man, trying to drown some mental suffering in physical activity. He gave no title with his name, and, like the rest of us, lived in the most absolute simplicity, but I noticed the crest on his linen, and in some books. I knew him to be an English peer."
With a visible effort the woman controlled herself.
"Yes," she said in a voice strange in her own ears, "Yes, I know him.
Would—would you give me his address?"
He took out a card from his vest pocket, wrote a line or two, and handed it to her in silence. As she read it her face grew almost radiant with surprised delight.
"Here?" she murmured. "So near?"
She seemed incapable of further speech, and, seeing it, the gentleman said quickly,
"You will pardon my officiousness. He is here in India, not many miles out from Bombay, and I shall see him very soon. Am I to mention you? I might—" he hesitated for the right words—"I could only say the pleasantest things of you, and the most general, but I am his friend, whom he claims to like and respect. If I am meddling with what is none of my business—"