“I am sorry to say it is far from reassuring,” continued Falconer.
A sudden flash of understanding and conviction flashed across her features, and its spirit dominated her weakness as its light transfigured her face. She rose, clinging to the chair, but evidently absolutely unconscious of any physical sensation, and held out her hand, still clammy and tremulous with pain.
“Give it me,” she said, indicating the letter he held. Her voice was a thin whisper. Then, as he hesitated: “You’re wasting time. Give it me.”
He gave it her without a word and turned away. It would break her down, of course, he thought; perhaps into some wild form of hysteria at the position in which the young man confessed himself; perhaps into passionate repudiation of the son who had so deceived her, and who was leaving her without word or sign. Moments passed, three or four perhaps, and then a tense, insistent touch fell on his arm and he turned. Mrs. Romayne was standing by his side, Julian’s letter held tightly in her hand, which trembled no longer. Her eyes were bright, almost hard in their determination, and every line and muscle of her face and figure was braced and set into a vivid strength and resolution.
“We must see this woman at once,” she said, and her voice was as strange in its desperate energy as was her face. Then, as Falconer only looked at her blankly, she added, in the same absorbed, concentrated way: “You will come with me?”
“You mean you will see——”
“I must see this woman,” she repeated, tapping the paper impatiently with her hand. “Don’t you see she will probably know where he is? She must know! Let us go at once!”
“But if she does know?”
“If she does know! Why, that is everything! I can follow him. He is frightened—he has lost his head. If he goes away like this he is lost. I am going to stop him.”