Lord Hartledon sat on, and drank his tea. He said well that he was always thirsty, though Mrs. Gum's expression was the better one. That timid matron, overcome by the honour accorded her, sat on the edge of her chair, cup in hand.
"I want to ask your husband if he can give me a description of the man who was concerned in that wretched mutiny on board the Morning Star," said Lord Hartledon, somewhat abruptly. "I mean the ringleader, Gordon. Why—What's the matter?"
Mrs. Gum had jumped up from her chair and began looking about the room. The cat, or something else, had "rubbed against her legs."
No cat could be found, and she sat down again, her teeth chattering. Lord Hartledon came to the conclusion that she was only fit for a lunatic asylum. Why did she keep a cat, if its fancied caresses were to terrify her like that?
"It was said, you know—at least it has been always assumed—that Gordon did not come back to England," he continued, speaking openly of his business, where a more prudent man would have kept his lips closed. "But I have reason to believe that he did come back, Mrs. Gum; and I want to find him."
Mrs. Gum wiped her face, covered with drops of emotion.
"Gordon never did come back, I am sure, sir," she said, forgetting all about titles in her trepidation.
"You don't know that he did not. You may think it; the public may think it; what's of more moment to Gordon, the police may think it: but you can't know it. I know he did."
"My lord, he did not; I could—I almost think I could be upon my oath he did not," she answered, gazing at Lord Hartledon with frightened eyes and white lips, which, to say the truth, rather puzzled him as he gazed back from his perch.
"Will you tell me why you assert so confidently that Gordon did not come back?"