A moment afterward James Cromwell entered the room.
The two looked at each other with a kind of guilty intelligence. Each saw in the other a murderer. One had put to death his intimate friend, for the sake of his money. The other had sent to death (so both supposed) an innocent boy, confided to his charge, and his crime, too, was instigated by the same sordid motive.
"Well," said Paul Morton, slowly.
"Did you receive a letter from me a day or two since?" asked James Cromwell.
"Yes."
"About the boy?"
"Yes, but I did not quite understand it. You wrote that he had disappeared. Has he returned to you?"
"No," said Cromwell.
"How do you account for his disappearance?" asked Paul Morton.