The third morning brought no news of the missing man, and Senator Burton, noting Gerald's and Daisy's preoccupied, anxious faces, began to wonder if his life would ever flow in pleasant, normal channels again.
The son and daughter whom he held so dear, whose habitual companionship was so agreeable to him, were now wholly absorbed in Mrs. Dampier and her affairs. They could think of nothing else, and, when they were alone with their father, they talked of nothing else.
The Senator remembered with special soreness what had happened the afternoon before, just after he had dismissed the clerk of the British Consul. Feeling an eager wish to forget, as far as might be for a little while, the mysterious business in which they were all so untowardly concerned, he had suggested to Daisy that they might go and spend a quiet hour in the Art section of the Exhibition. But to his great discomfiture, his daughter had turned on him with a look of scorn, almost of contempt:
"Father! Do you mean me to go out and leave poor little Nancy alone in her dreadful suspense and grief—just that I may enjoy myself?"
And the Senator had felt ashamed of his selfishness. Yes, it had been most unfeeling of him to want to go and gaze on some of the few masterpieces American connoisseurs have left in Europe, while this tragedy—for he realised that whatever the truth might be it was a tragedy—was still in being.
It was good to know that thanks to the British Consul's word of advice his way, to-day, was now clear. The time had come when he must advise Mrs. Dampier to send for some member of her family. Without giving his children an inkling of what he was about to say to their new friend, Senator Burton requested Nancy, in the presence of the two others, to come down into the garden of the Hôtel Saint Ange in order that they might discuss the situation.
As they crossed the sun-flecked cheerful courtyard Nancy pressed unconsciously nearer her companion, and averted her eyes from the kitchen window where the hotel-keeper and his wife seemed to spend so much of their spare time, gazing forth on their domain, watching with uneasy suspicion all those who came and went from the Burtons' apartments.
As the young Englishwoman passed through into the peaceful garden whose charm and old-world sweetness had been one of the lures which had drawn John Dampier to what was now to her a fatal place, she felt a sensation of terrible desolation come over her, the more so that she was now half conscious that Senator Burton, great as was his kindness, kept his judgment in suspense.
They sat down on a wooden bench, and for awhile neither spoke. "Have you found out anything?" she asked at last in a low voice. "I think by your manner that you have found out something, Mr. Burton—something you don't wish to say to me before the two others?"
He looked at her, surprised. "No," he said sincerely, "that is not so at all. I have found out nothing, Mrs. Dampier—would that I had! But I feel it only right to tell you that the moment has come when you should communicate with your friends. The British Consul told me that if we were still without news, still in suspense, this morning, he would strongly advise that you send for someone to join you in Paris. Surely you have some near relation who would come to you?"