Nancy shook her head. "No. I daresay it may seem strange to you, Senator Burton, but I have no near relations at all. I was the only child of a father and mother who, in their turn, were only children. I have some very distant cousins, a tribe of acquaintances, a few very kind friends—" her lips quivered "but no one—no one of whom I feel I could ask that sort of favour."
Senator Burton glanced at her in dismay. She looked very wan and fragile sitting there; whatever the truth, he could not but feel deeply sorry for her.
Suddenly she turned to him, and an expression of relief came over her sad eyes and mouth. "There is someone, Mr. Burton, someone I ought to have thought of before! There is a certain Mr. Stephens who was my father's friend as well as his solicitor; and he has always managed all my money matters. I'll write and ask Mr. Stephens if he can come to me. He was more than kind at the time of my marriage, though I'm afraid that he and Jack didn't get on very well together."
She looked up in Senator Burton's face with a bewildered, pleading look, and he suddenly realised how difficult a task such a letter would be to her, supposing, that is, that the story she told, the story in which even now the Senator only half believed—were true.
"I'll go up and write the letter now," she said, and together they both went, once more, indoors.
But Gerald Burton, when he heard of the proposed letter to Mrs. Dampier's lawyer, made an abrupt suggestion which both the Senator and Nancy welcomed with eagerness.
"Why shouldn't we telephone to this Mr. Stephens?" he asked. "That would save a day, and it would be far easier to explain to him all that has happened by word of mouth than in a letter—" He turned to Nancy, and his voice unconsciously softened: "If you will trust me, I will explain the situation to your friend, Mrs. Dampier."
The father and son's drive to the Central Paris-London-Telephone office was curiously silent, though both the older and the younger man felt full of unwonted excitement.
"Now, at last, I am on the track of the truth!" such was the Senator's secret thought. But he would not have been very much surprised had no such name as that of Davies P. Stephens, Solicitor, 58 Lincoln's Inn Fields, appeared in the London Telephone Directory. But yes, there the name was, and Gerald showed it to his father with a gleam of triumph.
"You will want patience—a good deal of patience," said the attendant mournfully.