Before the secret agent could reply to this, Warwick reëntered, and with him was a girl. She was slight and dark and dressed in white. Her most remarkable feature was her eyes; they were big and black and wonderful. Her manner was hushed and fearful; her voice, when she spoke, was sunk almost to a whisper.
"Philip tells me that you are a very gifted man," she said, after Warwick had spoken the words of presentation. "He says that hidden things are plain to you. I do not understand how or why this is, but nevertheless I am glad that you have come. And I only hope," here one of the slim, white hands trembled upon his sleeve, "that you have come in time."
"I think," said Ashton-Kirk, quietly, "that you had better make an effort to control yourself. You are cold with fear. It is necessary that you answer a few questions; so try and calm yourself—even if only for that reason."
"I can't! I can't!" She made a despairing sort of gesture, the great eyes filled with a thrilling terror. "How can I be calm when I read such things in his face?" One hand was upon the arm of the secret agent, the other upon that of young Warwick; she looked first at one and then the other. "Death is near to him," she said. "It is very near to him."
"No, no!" cried the young Englishman.
"I tell you, yes! And, perhaps, it is even nearer than I dream. It may be upon the very threshold."
"My dear girl," cried Warwick.
"Have you been blind, Philip?" she asked in the same whispering voice as before. "Have you been blind that you have not seen? But no," her tone changing tenderly, "it is not to be expected of you. He has not been a father to you."
"No," said Warwick, and somehow a second meaning seemed to lurk behind the words, "he has not."