He turned abruptly, as though he feared his resolution might fail him, and it was not until Violet heard the door swing to behind him that she realized she was alone. A minute or two later he was shown into a room where Hester Earle sat with Nettie Harding, and smiled a little when he saw the latter’s heightened color.
“I have come to ask you a favor, Miss Harding,” he said. “I want you to tell me where to find Bernard Appleby.”
“Why?” said the girl chillingly.
Tony made a little deprecatory gesture. “I deserve your suspicions, but I think you can trust me,” he said. “I want to repair the wrong I did him, and bring him back to England.”
Nettie looked at him steadily, though her face was flushed. “I don’t know that he will come,” she said. “He has a good deal to do there—and he has good friends in America.”
Tony smiled curiously. “I was not asking you to do Appleby a kindness. I was thinking of myself.”
Nettie appeared to understand him, for she took out a card and scribbled across it.
“I am sorry—and I think I know what you mean,” she said as she handed it him. “If my father is in Cuba now—and I think he is—he will tell you just what to do.”
Tony thanked her gravely, and with a little formal goodbye, which included Hester Earle, went out of the room. In another minute they heard the outer door close behind him, and Nettie’s color grew a trifle deeper as she glanced at her companion.
“I couldn’t help it, but I’m sorry I wasn’t quite sure of him now,” she said. “There’s a great difference in that man since yesterday. He has had a rough shaking up, but it has brought all that’s good in him up on top.”