"What is this?" she asked sharply. "You know something about de Lorgnes?"
"Had you not heard?" he countered, looking up in surprise.
"Heard--?" He saw her eyes stabbed by fear, and knew himself justified of his surmises. All day she had been expecting de Lorgnes, or word from him, all day and all this night. One could imagine the hourly augmented strain of care and foreboding; indeed its evidence were only too clearly betrayed in her face and manner of that moment: she was on the rack.
But there was no pity in Lanyard's heart. He knew her of old, what she was, what evil she had done; and in his hearing still sounded the echoes of those words with which, obliquely enough but without misunderstanding on the part of either, she had threatened to expose him to the police unless he consented to some sort of an alliance with her, a collaboration whose nature could not but be dishonourable if it were nothing more than a simple conspiracy of mutual silence.
And purposely he delayed his answer till her patience gave way and she was clutching his arm with frantic hands.
"What is the matter? Why do you look at me like that? Why don't you tell me--if there is anything to tell--?"
"I was hesitating to shock you, Liane."
"Never mind me. What has happened to de Lorgnes?"
"It is in all the evening newspapers--the murder mystery of the Lyons rapide."
"De Lorgnes--?"