"Good Lord!" the other ejaculated blankly. "And all that I wrote of,—was it news to you?"
Lenox nodded without looking up.
"My dear fellow, for God's sake don't tell me that a thoughtless letter of mine was responsible——"
Lenox rose and went over to the mantelpiece. The full light on his face was more than he cared about just then.
"You asked for the truth," he said, in a hard, even voice, "and—you have made a clean shot at it. We separated that day. I have neither seen nor heard of her since."
A long silence followed this bald statement of the case. Max Richardson had no words in which to express the pain he felt. Brutus arose, and rubbed himself against his master's legs, as if dimly aware that sympathy of some sort was required of him, and the regular beat of the sentry's footsteps asserted itself in the stillness.
At last Richardson spoke. "Wonder you cared about shaking hands with me again after that."
Lenox came nearer, and took him by the shoulder.
"My dear good Dick," he said quietly, "don't talk rubbish; and oblige me by putting the whole affair out of your head. It's as dead as a door-nail. Has been these five years. After all, you were simply an instrument—a providential instrument," he added grimly—"in the general scheme of things." He paused for a moment; then returned to his station on the hearth-rug.
"You say she has been painting under her own name. Has she been doing much in that line lately?"