Mr. Stephens looked extremely uncomfortable. "Well, some of them have thought that it is a possibility which should be kept in view."
"But you do not think so?" She looked at him searchingly.
The lawyer's courage failed him.
"No, of course not," he said hastily, and poor little Nancy believed him.
"And now," he went on quickly, relieved indeed to escape from a painful and difficult subject, "I, myself, must go home on Saturday. Cannot I persuade you to come back to England with me? My wife would be delighted if you would come to us—and for as long as you like."
She hesitated—"No, Mr. Stephens, you are very, very kind, but I would rather remain on in Paris for a while. Miss Burton has asked me to stay with them till they leave for America. Once they are gone, if I still have no news, I will do what you wish. I will come back to England."
The second episode, if episode it can be called, which was to remain vividly present in the memory of the lawyer, took place on the fifth day of his stay in Paris.
He and Gerald had exhausted what seemed every possible line of enquiry, when the latter put in plain words what, in deference to his father's wish, he had hitherto tried to conceal from Mr. Stephens—his suspicions of the Poulains.
"I haven't said so to you before," he began abruptly, "but I feel quite sure that this Mr. John Dampier is dead."
He spoke the serious words in low, impressive tones, and the words, the positive assertion, queerly disturbed Nancy's lawyer, and that though he did not in the least share in his companion's view. But still he felt disturbed, perhaps unreasonably so considering how very little he still knew of the speaker. He was indeed almost as disturbed as he would have been had it been his own son who had suddenly put forward a wrong and indeed an untenable proposition.