Captain Hampton's cogitations came to nothing. He walked up and down his little room until the lodger in the parlour below went out in despair to his club. He tried the effect of an hour's stroll in the least frequented part of Kensington Gardens. He drove to Mr. Slippen's to inquire if any clue had been obtained as to Truscott's movements. He ate a solitary dinner at his lodgings and smoked an enormous quantity of tobacco, but could see no clue whatever to the mystery. The meeting he had witnessed was to him a piece of evidence far more damning than that of the jeweller and his assistants. If she could explain that, the other matter might be got over, though he could not see how. If she could not explain it, it was evident that he had nothing to do but to advise her father to settle the business at any cost.
CHAPTER VII
At nine o'clock Captain Hampton called at Chester Square and was shown into the drawing-room, from which, as previously arranged, Mr. Hawtrey had dismissed Mrs. Daintree, telling her that he had some private matters to discuss with Ned Hampton.
Mrs. Daintree had retired tearfully, saying that for her part she preferred hearing nothing about this painful matter—meaning that of the letters, for she was ignorant of the later development.
Dorothy looked flushed and feverish. Her eyes were large and brilliant, and there was a restlessness in her manner as she shook hands with her old friend.
'Well, Ned,' she asked, with an attempt at playfulness, 'what is your verdict—guilty or not guilty?'
'You need not ask me, Dorothy. Even the evidence of my own eyes would scarcely avail to convince me against your word.' Then he turned to her father. 'I have done nothing but think the matter over since you left me, and I can see but one solution—an utterly improbable one, I admit—but I will not tell you what it is until I have spoken to Miss Hawtrey. Would you mind my putting a question or two to her alone?'
'Certainly not, Ned,' said Mr. Hawtrey, rising.
But Dorothy exclaimed: 'No, no, father, I will not have it so. I don't know what Captain Hampton is going to ask me, but nothing that he can ask me nor my answers could I wish you not to hear. Please sit down again. There shall be no mysteries between us, at any rate.'