"Has Edith come down?" he asked. "I wish to speak to her for a moment."
"Edith is prowling about in the rain, somewhere, like an uneasy ghost," answered Trixy; "no doubt wet feet, and discomfort, and dampness generally are cures for headache; or, perhaps, she's looking for you."
He hardly waited to hear her out before he started in pursuit. As if favored by fortune, he caught a glimpse of Edith's purple dress among the trees in the distance. She had no umbrella, and was wandering about pale and listless in the rain.
"Edith," Sir Victor exclaimed, "out in all this downpour without an umbrella? You will get your death of cold."
"I never take cold," she answered indifferently. "I always liked to run out in the rain ever since I was a child. I must be an amphibious sort of animal, I think. Besides, the damp air helps my headache."
He drew her hand within his arm and led her slowly in the direction of the window where the watcher stood.
"Edith," he began abruptly, "I have news for you. To call it bad news would sound inhuman, and yet it has half-stunned me. It is this—my father is alive."
"Sir Victor!"
"Alive, Edith—hopelessly insane, but alive. That is the news Lady Helena and one other, have told me this morning. It has stunned me; I repeat—is it any wonder? All those years I have thought him dead, and to-day I discover that from first to last I have been deceived."
She stood mute with surprise. His father alive—madness in the family. Truly it would have been difficult for Sir Victor or any one else to call this good news. They were directly beneath the window. He glanced up—yes, a pale face gleamed from behind the curtain, gazing down at that other pale face by Sir Victor's side. Very pale, very set just now.