"I think the help that Lawrence stands in need of," said Lyon, deliberately, "is not money, but information that will clear up the case."
She started up nervously. "But I couldn't give that. I haven't any information. You didn't think--"
"I was only supposing a case."
"I should like to do something, but I don't know how I can. He has done much for me, without counting the cost to himself. I have reason to be grateful to Mr. Lawrence. Will you remember that, and if anything suggests itself to you that would give me an opportunity to do anything for him, will you let me know?"
"Is It your intention to stay here for some time, then?" Lyon said.
She looked helpless and undecided. "I--don't know. I didn't mean to, but I don't feel very strong. I think I may stay for a week longer. I need rest. I have had some distressing news. It has unnerved me."
"This is a restful place," Lyon said sympathetically. "It was fortunate that Miss Elliott's school was closed this week. You have been as quiet and undisturbed here as though you had been quartered in a rest-cure sanitarium, haven't you?" He had put the rather too personal question with intention, meaning to see how she would take it, but he was not prepared for its effect upon her. She looked at him with startled nervousness and laughed,--and then continued to laugh and laugh as though he had made an irresistible joke. Lyon waited for her to recover her poise, and it was not until her wild laughter changed suddenly to wilder sobs that he realized she was in the grip of nervous hysteria. He hastily rang the bell and then went out into the hall himself to meet the slow-answering maid and send her whirling back to bring Miss Elliott.
"Shall I telephone for Dr. Barry?" he whispered, when Miss Elliott had come and taken the still sobbing woman in her arms.
"Yes, do, for goodness' sake. What in the world started her?" Miss Elliott answered, distractedly. The situation was so alien to her rule-regulated life that she looked bewildered by it.
Lyon neglected the second part of her speech to attend to the first. He found the telephone in the hall, and got Barry.