Within half an hour the rooms occupied by Sir Charles and Agnes are vacated. Two figures in male attire enter a closed conveyance, and are driven rapidly in an opposite direction from that taken by Paul Lanier.
CHAPTER IX
THE HOSPITAL CONFESSION
Sir Donald Randolph and Esther remained several months at Paris.
While keeping fully advised of all developments reported to the London detective bureau, Sir Donald seemed absorbed in sight-seeing. His zeal in unmasking the conspiracy resulting in the double murder was unabated. That Paul Lanier, at the instigation of his father, committed the homicides, partial developments tended to prove. From Calcutta and Bombay advices received at London there was no doubt that some fraud had been perpetrated against the estate of William Webster by his partner in India.
Sir Donald felt much concern for the welfare of Esther. Not having his retributive zeal to support her in this trial, she brooded more over the recent past. He tried to divert her mind to pleasant subjects, thereby weaning from sorrowful memories.
There was much in Paris life to engross youthful attention. This, with her generous sympathy for her father's troubles and effort to mitigate his painful remembrances, prevented gloomy melancholy. Yet Esther could not be joyous. Both Oswald and Alice were transfigured. Her love for the one and pity for the other grew in tender pathos. Oswald Langdon ever would be an ideal of courteous, refined, considerate, earnest, high-souled manhood, whose last of life had touched her being's most sensitive vibratory chords.
Father and daughter were much admired by Parisian social élite. Their rare intelligence, culture, and refined manners had an irresistible charm. However, there was that about both which repelled familiar personal association. They moved amid gay festivities as if their thoughts were elsewhere.