"No, we cannot, sir. I never see Lady Chandos, any more than others do."
"Which you cannot say of Mr. Harry; you see rather much of him," retorted Mr. Edwin Barley, with a parting of the lips that showed the subject vexed him. "You and he are together always—as the news is brought to me."
"Did Mrs. Penn tell you that?" I asked, my colour and my anger rising together.
"Mrs. Penn!"
"The lady you have just parted with," I answered, supposing he did not know her by name.
"Mrs. Chandos's companion? She's none too civil to me. You had a visit from the mounted police last evening; an unexpected one, rumour runs. Did their sudden appearance confound Mr. Harry Chandos?"
How he seemed to know things! Did he get them from mere rumour, or from Lizzy Dene? I remained silent.
"Did they bring, I ask, confusion to Mr. Chandos? Did he exhibit the aspect, the terror, of one who—who has been guilty of some great crime, and dreads to expiate, it?"
"I cannot tell you, sir."
"You were with him, I know that much," he returned, in the same commanding, angry, imperative tone of voice I had once heard him use to my aunt Selina.