A cold and formal invitation was therefore accorded to Miss Berlin as Mrs. Leslie's friend. Irene, burning with resentment and wounded pride, would fain have declined and gone out into the cold, strange world to seek her bread among strangers, but Mrs. Leslie's gentle solicitation prevailed, and she accepted the grudging invitation as reluctantly as it had been given. We will leave her there, in "the land of the orange, the myrtle and vine," and return to Guy Kenmore.
[CHAPTER XXI.]
Mr. Kenmore, in his pursuit of knowledge, had no difficulty in tracing the Stuarts in Richmond.
At the elegant and fashionable West End of the city, a stylish residence was pointed out to him as the home of Clarence Stuart and his family.
He remained in the city a few days and stored his mind with all the available facts regarding this, to him, interesting family.
It was easy to do. The Stuarts, as wealthy, fashionable and aristocratic people, were well known. The city papers had duly announced their departure for Italy in their own yacht, the Sea-Bird. Their movements were considered generally interesting to the public, to judge by the paragraphs that appeared in the daily journals.
Mr. Kenmore heard, incidentally, that Clarence Stuart's wife had been a wealthy heiress when he married her, some fifteen years before.
Casual inquiry elicited the fact that Clarence Stuart's father had been dead three weeks.
Guy Kenmore was startled by this information. It went far towards confirming his theory of the fragment of letter found in old Ronald Brooke's dead hand, and which he treasured carefully in his pocket-book.