'Only in words,' she stayed to say. 'Just let him say it in words.' But nobody took any notice of the suggestion.
His bearing calm and self-possessed, his manner authoritative, Dr. Bevary passed out to his carriage, motioning the lady before him. Self-willed as she was by nature and by habit, she appeared to have no thought of resistance now. 'Step in,' said Dr. Bevary. She obeyed, and he seated himself by her, after giving an order to the coachman. The carriage turned towards the west for a short distance, and then branched off to the north. In a comparatively short time they were clear of the bustle of London. Miss Gwinn sat in silence; the doctor sat in silence. It seemed that the former wished, yet dreaded to ask the purport of their present journey, for her white face was working with emotion, and she glanced repeatedly at the doctor, with a sharp, yearning look. When they were clear of the bustle of the streets; and the hedges, bleak and bare, bounded the road on either side, broken by a house here and there, then she could bear the silence and suspense no longer.
'Why do you not speak?' broke from her in a tone of pain.
'First of all, tell me what brought you to town now,' was his reply. 'It is not your time for being here.'
'The recent death of your sister. I came up by the early train this morning. Dr. Bevary, you are the only living being to whom I lie under an obligation, or from whom I have experienced kindness. People may think me ungrateful; some think me mad; but I am grateful to you. But for the fact of that lady's being your sister I should have insisted upon another's rights being acknowledged long ago.'
'You told me you waived them in consequence of your brother's conduct.'
'Partially so. But that did not weigh with me in comparison with my feeling of gratitude to you. How impotent we are!' she exclaimed, throwing up her hands. 'My efforts by day, my dreams by night, were directed to one single point through long, long years—the finding James Lewis. I had cherished the thought of revenge until it became part and parcel of my very existence; I was hoping to expose him to the world. But when the time came, and I did find him, I found that he had married your sister, and that I could not touch him without giving pain to you. I hesitated what to do. I went home to Ketterford, deliberating——'
'Well?' said the doctor. For she had stopped abruptly.
'Some spirit of evil prompted me to disclose to my good-for-nothing brother that the man, Lewis, was found. I told him more than that, unhappily.'
'What else did you tell him?'