Without a moment's hesitation he answered: "You can say there has been trouble among the servants, and that I should feel much obliged if I could have the house cleared of all my visitors by to-night."
Then Blanche Farrow came to a sudden determination. "I will get them all away to-day, Lionel, but I, myself, will stay till to-morrow morning."
For the first time during this strange, to her this unutterably painful conversation, Varick showed a touch of real, genuine feeling. It was as if a mask had fallen from his face.
He gripped her hand. "You're a brick!" he exclaimed. "I ought to tell you to go away, too, but I won't be proud, Blanche. I'll accept your kindness."
CHAPTER XXIII
There are hours in almost every life of which the memory is put away, hidden, as far as may be, in an unfathomable pit. Blanche Farrow never recalled to herself, and never discussed with any living being, the hours which followed her talk with Lionel Varick.
Of the five people to whom she told the untrue tale so quickly and so cleverly imagined by their host, only one suspected that she was not telling the truth. That one—oddly enough—was Sir Lyon Dilsford. He guessed that something was wrong, and in one sense he got near to the truth—but it was such a very small bit of the truth!
Sir Lyon suspected that Varick had made an offer to Helen Brabazon, and that she had refused him. But he was never to know if his suspicion had been correct, for he was one of those rare human being who are never tempted to ask indiscreet or unnecessary questions from even their nearest and dearest.