Much depended upon the issue of this visit if Alison was still free. He had come frankly, freely, to urge humbly his suit again, backed by the undoubted wealth which had flowed upon him since last they met at Chilcote.
He found Sir Ranald in a handsome apartment, seated in an easy-chair, but looking pale, thin, and worn. He made no offer of his hand, as with both he grasped the arms of the chair, tremulous with rage, while his eyes glared like those of a rattlesnake through the glasses of his pince-nez at his unexpected visitor, who scarcely knew how or where to begin, and looked nervously round him for some evidence of the recent presence of Alison, but saw nothing.
'Permit me to congratulate you, Sir Ranald—' he began.
'On what?' asked the other, savagely.
'On the escape from death by drowning which we were all led to suppose you and Miss Cheyne had suffered.'
'I don't want your congratulations; and, so far as Miss Cheyne is concerned, your appearance in Antwerp sufficiently accounts for her mysterious disappearance.'
Utter bewilderment, in which emotions of dismay, fear, and anger coursed through his mind, tied the tongue of Bevil Goring—dismay and fear he knew not of what, and anger lest this was some fresh trickery of Lord Cadbury.
'Mysterious disappearance!' he faltered.
'Your conduct, Captain Goring, has been shamefully deceitful—most dishonourable!' exclaimed Sir Ranald, in a broken but still enraged tone.
'How?'