She did not smile, but her eyes were raised fully to his face. Those dark, deep eyes so full of the noblest emotions which can stir the human soul, looked at him now with a pathos that touched his heart. He moved away to talk to other friends, but the thought of Margaret Awdrey returned to him many times during the ensuing night.
CHAPTER X.
At the appointed hour on the following morning Mrs. Everett was shown into Dr. Rumsey's presence. She found him in his cosy breakfast-room, in the act of helping himself to coffee.
"Ah!" he said, as he placed a chair for her, "what an excellent thing this punctuality is in a woman. Sit down, pray. You shall have your full ten minutes—the clock is only on the stroke of eight."
Mrs. Everett looked too disturbed and anxious even to smile. She untied her bonnet-strings, threw back her mantle, and stared straight at Dr. Rumsey.
"No coffee, thank you," she said. "I breakfasted long ago. Dr. Rumsey, I am nearly wild with excitement and anxiety. I told you long ago, did I not, that a day would come when I should get a clue which might lead to establishing my boy's"—she wet her lips—"my only boy's innocence? Nothing that can happen now will ever, of course, repair what he has lost—his lost youth, his lost healthy outlook on life—but to set him free, even now! To give him his liberty once again! To feel the clasp of his hand on mine! Ah, I nearly go mad at times with longing, but thank God, thank the Providence which is above us all, I do believe I have found a clue at last."
"Tell me what it is," said the doctor, in a kind voice. "I know," he added, "you will make your story as brief as possible."
"I will, my good friend," she replied. She stood up now, her somewhat long arms hung at her sides, she turned her face in all its intense purpose full upon the doctor.
"You know my restless nature," she continued. "I can seldom or never sit still—even my sleep is broken by terrible dreams. All the energy which I possess is fixed upon one thought, and one only—I want to find the real murderer of Horace Frere."