"I don't think you need fear Neal's prevention for the future in regard to seeing me," said Captain Davenal, in a significant tone, as he civilly bowed out Mrs. Wentworth.
"Well, Sara, and what do you think of Neal now?"
"I can't understand it; I can't understand why he should have said it, or what his motive was," slowly replied Sara. "Oh, if he only knew the cruel days and nights it caused me to pass. Shall you tell Aunt Bettina of Neal's falsity?"
"Tell her!" repeated Captain Davenal. "Do you think I can allow her and you to be any longer under the same roof with a villain such as Neal?"
[CHAPTER LX.]
LIGHT.
Not to Miss Bettina, however, did Captain Davenal at once take his way, but to Parliament Street. The revelation of Sara that morning--that the one dark episode in his own past history had been known to Oswald Cray--was troubling Edward Davenal's mind far more than any sense of the inconvenience wrought by Mr. Neal.
They stood together in Oswald's sitting-room, the doors closed. A few words of greeting on both sides, and then the captain plunged wholesale, without any ceremony or preparation, into the object which had brought him.
"I have come to ask you a question," he began, dropping his voice to a confidential whisper. "How did you become acquainted with that miserable business of mine?"
"With what miserable business?" returned Oswald, in surprise.