[CHAPTER VII]
Lyon was evidently expected, for he was conducted at once to the rooms which had been closed to him in the afternoon, and there he found Mrs. Broughton awaiting him. He was prepared to be interested in the woman whose story had so curiously touched his own experiences, but when he came into her presence he forgot that he was before the woman whose first husband he had buried, and whose second husband was a man heralded by headlines across a continent. He only saw a frail, slight, beautiful woman, with a wistful sweetness in her eyes, propped against high pillows on a couch. She looked so ill, so like a fluttering candle in the wind, that his concern must have betrayed itself, for she smiled at him with an air of reassurance.
"It was kind of you to come so promptly at a stranger's request," she said gently. "Miss Elliott told me of your visit this afternoon, and I wanted to thank you for respecting my wish to remain unknown to the general public. I wonder how you came to know?"
"It was mostly an accident," Lyon murmured. "I come across a good deal of incidental information, you know."
"You newspaper men are so clever," she said, and Lyon wondered whether his imagination was playing him tricks or whether there really was something like fear lurking in her eyes. Certainly her hands were fluttering with nervousness, and her breath came and went in hurried gasps that meant either extreme weakness or emotion. With an obvious effort that awoke his admiration, she pulled herself together and went on in a stronger voice.
"That was not the reason I had for wishing to see you, however. I wanted to ask you some questions that you, as a newspaper man, could answer better than anyone else; and since you already knew of my presence here, I could speak to you without spreading that insignificant bit of information any further than it has gone already."
"I shall be very happy if I can be of any service," Lyon answered, with more sincerity than usually goes into the polite phrase. He felt, really, that nothing earth could offer would rejoice him more, just then, than to have her ask questions, for nothing would more certainly reveal where her own interests and anxieties lay. But she seemed to find it difficult to begin, for a long pause followed,--a pause which he would not break, and which apparently she could not. At last she said, with an abruptness that made her voice tense,
"I was very much shocked by that tragedy Monday."
Lyon nodded, and kept his eyes lowered to remind her of his presence as little as possible. But, he wondered, why did she say Monday? If her knowledge of it came through the papers, the shock could not have reached her until Tuesday. And how else could she have known, unless--
"You see, I used to know--Mr. Lawrence," she said.