"Oh, Edith, you know why I have come! you know who has sent me. You know what I have come for."
The dark, deep eyes met hers, full, cold, hard, and bright as diamonds.
"I don't in the least know what you have come for. I haven't an idea who can have sent you. I know who you are. You are Sir Victor Catheron's cousin."
Without falter or flinch she spoke his name—with a face of stone she waited for the answer. If any hope had lingered in the breast of Inez it died out as she looked at her now.
"Yes," she said sadly; "I am Victor Catheron's cousin, and there could be but one to send me here—Victor Catheron himself."
"And why has Sir Victor Catheron given you that trouble?"
"Oh, Edith!" again that imploring gesture, "let me call you so—need you ask? All these months he has been searching for you, losing health and rest in the fruitless quest—wearing himself to a very shadow looking for you. He has been to New York, he has hunted London—it has brought him almost to the verge of death, this long, vain, miserable search."
Her perfect lips curled scornfully, her eyes shot forth gleams of contempt, but her voice was very quiet.
"And again I ask why—why has Sir Victor Catheron given himself all this unnecessary trouble?"
"Unnecessary! You call it that! A husband's search for a lost wife."