"It may prove," said he, "a far more serious affair than the other. Lord Rivercourt is not the man to sit quietly under an outrage like that."
Julius astonished him by demanding, "What is the outrage? Has the lady given an account of it? What does she accuse the man of?"
"She has not spoken yet,—to me, at least," said Lefevre; "and I don't know what the outrage can be called, but I am sure Lord Rivercourt—and he is a man of immense influence—will move heaven and earth to give it a legal name, and to get it punishment. There is a detective on the man's track now."
"Oh!" said Julius. "Well, it will be time enough to discuss the punishment when the man is caught. Now, if that is all your news," he added hurriedly, "I think——" He took up his hat, and was as if going to the door.
"It is not quite all," said the doctor, and Julius went back to the window, with his hat in his hand.
"I wonder," he broke out, "if we shall ever be simple enough and intelligent enough to perceive that real wickedness—the breaking of any of the laws of Nature, I mean (or, if you prefer to say so, the laws of God)—is best punished by being left to itself? Outraged nature exacts a severe retribution! But you were going to say——?"
"The night before last," continued Lefevre, determined to be brief and succinct, "I was walking in the Strand, and I could not help observing a man who fulfilled completely the description given of the author of this case and my former one."
"Well?"
"That is not all. When I caught sight of his face I was completely amazed; for—I must tell you—it looked for all the world like you grown old, or, as I said to myself at the time, like a death-mask of you."
"You—you saw that?" exclaimed Julius, leaning against the window with a sudden look of terror which Lefevre was ashamed to have seen: it was like catching a glimpse of Julius's poor naked soul. "And you thought—?" continued Julius.